Wolves, Witches and Ghosts
by Illusn
Summary: A Phic Phight attack using Cyroclastic's Mythological AU prompt, where Sam's a witch and Tucker's a werewolf. Danny's portal accident leaves him with ghost powers, and a whole new world of the supernatural to struggle to fit into and understand.
1. Chapter 1: A World Unseen

The odd trio of Danny, Sam and Tucker sat in the Nasty Burger, sipping at their smoothies. This on its own was normal, what was less normal was the topic of discussion.

"Wait, you're telling us your folks made a portal to the Ghost Zone in your basement?" Tucker asked, mouth half full of burger, ignoring the glare Sam sent his way.

"Yeah, but it didn't work. They've been kinda depressed since the morning," Danny responded, and stirred his milkshake with the straw.

"Can we see it?" Sam sounded enthusiastic, and Tucker coughed quietly, a reminder to her that it was a full moon that night and he needed to get home on time.

"I guess, but it's just a hole with circuitry anyway," Danny replied, shrugging.

"Hole with circuitry or not, it's still pretty cool," Sam pressed.

Tucker sighed in defeat at the spark of interest in Danny's eyes. Ah, the things teenage boys would do for their crushes - of course Tucker would never do such a thing.

Finishing off their meals, the trio set out from the fast food establishment, the warm breeze of early autumn carrying the scent of decaying flora through the air. The trees that lined the road had gained an orange hue, and rustled gently. Tucker enjoyed his time at the back of the group, taking in the smells and feeling of the air. The time before the full moon always heightened his senses beyond their usual superhuman levels, and he was going to enjoy it.

Suburban houses passed by until they reached the Fenton household, which stuck out like a sore thumb with its great big neon sign. Quite how it hadn't been removed as a public eyesore, Tucker couldn't be sure - perhaps because it was on private property. He was getting sidetracked. Noticing that his friends had now entered the house, he jogged after them.

The group made a beeline for the basement, Sam leading the trio. A circle drilled into the wall went along for an indistinguishable length, becoming submerged in shadows towards the end, with metal plating and wires along the interior walls. LED lights blinked in little gaps in the plating, and it looked like some sort of sci-fi prop.

"Woah," both Sam and Tucker breathed.

Sam brought out her camera, snapping a polaroid photo of the wall. "Hey, Danny, can you stand in front of the portal? Wait, is that a jumpsuit?" A black and white jumpsuit was hung on the right hand wall, next to a bunch of dials and gauges.

Danny sighed, picking it up off the hook. "Yeah, my parents made me a jumpsuit - in case I ever wanted to get into the ghost hunting business with them. Jazz already hid hers so they can't make her wear it."

Sam snapped yet another photo. "Want to check it out in that portal?"

Danny was reluctant. "I showed you the portal. Can we please get out of here?"

"Come on, Danny. A Ghost Zone? Aren't you curious? You gotta check it out," Sam chided.

Tucker gave a weak argument against Sam's points, "I don't know about this. It seems like a bad idea. You don't even know if it's safe."

"It seems safe, my parents are pretty careful about their designs. You should have seen the amount of calculations and work that went into this," Danny said after some deliberation. "Besides, who knows what kind of awesome, super-cool things exist on the other side of that portal?"

He pulled on the jumpsuit over his casual wear. A block colour design of Jack Fenton's face was plastered on the front of the jumpsuit, and Sam ripped it off. "You can't go walking around with that on your chest," she said.

Danny's face gained a pink tinge, and he turned to face the mouth of the portal. He took a step into the tunnel cautiously. His eyes were focused on the path ahead of him, and his gloved hand trailed along the wall, feeling every nook and bump on its welded surface. His hand seemed to tingle with energy as it passed over one of the lights, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

"Danny, I don't know if you should go in much further, it's pretty dark in there," Tucker called out, and as if on cue, Danny tripped over a loose wire. He caught himself, hearing a click, and looking up he saw that the 'on' button had been pressed.

"Guys-" Danny tried to call out, but his voice was drowned out by the whine of electronics starting up.

In an instant, his vision was obscured by green, electricity rocketing through his every cell, ricocheting around his body. The green grew more vibrant and Danny's vision began to fade. He could barely hear himself scream, but the strain on his vocal chords told him that he was screaming for all he was worth as it felt like every inch of his body was on fire.

And then it was cold, like frostbite. Danny couldn't stay awake any longer, and he stumbled along, hearing the panicked cries of his friends above all else, permeating through his suffering. Maybe if he could get to them they could get him medical help.

He fell onto the smooth floor of the lab, his last waking thought being that he didn't want to die.

Sam and Tucker weren't sure how to respond to the figure of their best friend staggering out of the activated portal, but with inverted colours, like someone had been playing around in Photoshop - but this was real. Tucker's first reaction was panic, pacing around in circles. Sam, on the other hand, was more accustomed to the supernatural, reaching out to try and touch Danny's shoulder.

Emphasis on 'try'. Her hand phased right through him, leaving a trail of ghostly wisps along the way. Her eyes welled up with tears, and she tried to vocalise the conclusion she had reached the instant she realised she couldn't touch him.

Still grabbing fruitlessly at her friend's shoulder, she let out a strangled cry, tears now pouring unimpeded down her cheeks. "Ghost, he's a ghost!"

Tucker stopped his pacing, blood draining from his face. "He can't be, right? There's got to be something we can do to help him."

"Guys, what's wrong?" A groan came from the ghost, who was now sitting up, hand on his head, nursing what must have been a splitting headache. He opened his eyes, revealing a toxic green that reflected off every surface in the vicinity.

"Danny…" Sam murmured sadly, her makeup smeared down her face.

Danny looked across the room at the shiny surface of one of the cupboards, and his breath hitched. His eyes met his reflection's and rove up and down the unfamiliar-looking boy sitting on the basement floor. "Oh, God!" he exclaimed.

Tucker raised his hands in an attempt to calm the terrified spirit. "We'll work this out, okay."

Danny was hyperventilating now (something that really shouldn't be possible for a ghost, Sam noted).

"I can't be a ghost. I'm not dead. I'm just fourteen," he pleaded, and as he closed his eyes tightly a bright light erupted from around his waist. Rings like galaxies travelled up and down his body from the centrepoint, changing his jumpsuit to regular clothes and sucking the light from his eyes, leaving them as their natural blue. Finally a ring passed over the top of his head, changing his hair from stark white to coal black.

Sam and Tucker didn't have any idea what was going on, but they weren't going to complain, both launching themselves at Danny to hug him.

Apparently this was the wrong thing to do, as he reflexively turned intangible and they went right through him, colliding into each other.

"Aahh!" Danny shrieked, and Sam and Tucker moved backwards just to see him sinking into the floor. They grabbed his arms on instinct, thankfully being able to contact him this time, and yanked him upwards. Once his feet were above the ground, Sam shouted, "Danny, focus on the floor being solid!"

Danny's feet touched down on the floor, and he gave a sigh of relief, before having a look of surprise. "Thanks, but how'd you know that'd work?"

Sam was panting. "It was just a hunch," she said, noncommittally.

Danny had a feeling that there was more to that story, but he wasn't going to press it at the moment.

Danny thought for a bit, still reeling in shock from what had just happened. Then, "how will i tell my parents about what just happened?!"

Both Sam and Tucker froze. "Oh, crud," Tucker mouthed.

"Um, maybe you could stay over at my house tonight? Just until we work stuff out?"

"You know what tonight is, right?" Sam asked incredulously.

Tucker nodded. "Yeah, but he's one of us now, isn't he?"

"What are you talking about?" Danny was feeling even more overwhelmed, if that was possible at the moment.

Tucker shushed Sam as she tried to protest. "We can't keep lying to him, especially not after this. Sam and I are members of the supernatural community."

There, it was out in the open.

"I'm a werewolf, and Sam's a witch. I'm sorry we kept this a secret from you for so long, I'd understand if you don't want to spend time with us after this."

Danny's mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, and he flickered out of the visible spectrum.

"Danny?" both Sam and Tucker exclaimed, and he reappeared, looking just as shocked as they were at his sudden disappearing act.

"I'll text my parents that I'm going round to yours." Danny fumbled for his phone, with it falling through his hands a couple of times before he managed to get a proper grip on it and type out a simple message.

"So you're not mad?" Sam asked, torn between being nervous and relieved.

Danny shook his head. "I don't know, I just need to know what's going on right now."

Sam nodded in understanding, wanting to know what was going on too.

The trio left the house after grabbing Danny's school bag and pyjamas, and a brief interaction with Jazz, who seemed none the wiser as to what had happened down in the basement (thank you soundproofing), explaining that Danny was going to stay the night at Tucker's in as short terms as possible.

"So,-" Danny tried to start up a conversation, but had his friends' hands slapped across his mouth, while Sam hissed, "not in public, wait until we get to Tuck's house."

The rest of the walk passed in stilted silence, all three parties on edge, preparing for some unknown foe to jump them.

"Tucker? Is that you?" Mrs Foley's face poked into the hallway as the trio entered the house, and she did a good job of hiding her surprise.

Tucker waved awkwardly. "Hi Mom. We kind of have a situation."

This sent a wave of panic through Mrs Foley, and she began searching outside the window. "Close the door, then explain," she snapped, and Tucker obliged.

Once the door was shut and locked, he launched into a high-speed monologue. "Okay so we were down in Danny's basement, and his parents built a portal to the Ghost Zone." Mrs Foley raised an eyebrow at this, but didn't interrupt. "And then Danny went to check it out, and I think it turned on when he was inside it, and he came out as a ghost, but then he changed back to normal, and we don't know what's happening, but this is probably the safest place for him right now."

Mrs Foley did her best to process what Tucker had just said before speaking. "Does he know about us?"

Tucker nodded, and his mother's eyes lit up a yellowish colour for the briefest moment, shorter than a blink. "Did you tell him?"

Tucker nodded again.

"How much does he know?" she asked cautiously.

"Just the basics, that I'm a werewolf and Sam's a witch. We were kinda freaking out after we thought he was dead." Tucker braced himself for an onslaught of words, only to be surprised when his mom went over and sniffed Danny's hair.

"He smells like a ghost," she proclaimed, and Danny's stomach dropped. "But, he's also alive."

Mrs Foley ushered the shell-shocked teen into the sitting room, glancing at the clock, which read 5 o'clock.

Danny collapsed into the armchair, and Mrs Foley went about checking his pulse and breathing, both of which were slower than they really should have been, but nothing dangerous. She then turned to Tucker and Sam. "What did you mean 'he came out as a ghost'?"

This time, Sam took her turn to explain. "Like, he had white hair and glowing green eyes, and he phased right through me. Then these rings of light appeared and changed him back to normal."

A moment of silence hung in the air before Mrs Foley reached a conclusion. "It seems to me that he's somehow ghost and human at the same time, as impossible as that sounds. Be glad he didn't die all the way." Mrs Foley gave them both a scolding glare. "I can understand why you brought him here after the fact, with his parents being ghost hunters and all, but why on earth would he have gone into a portal to the Ghost Zone of all places?"

Sam shuffled her feet guiltily. "That was my fault," she piped up. "I encouraged him to check it out." Tears were threatening to spill from her eyes again, and Mrs Foley's glare relented.

Her gaze softened when she looked back over to Danny, who seemed to have recovered a little from his shock, but unfortunately was moving onto panic.

"Shh, it's okay Danny, calm down," Mrs Foley said gently.

Danny, however, hardly calmed down.

"If Tucker's a werewolf, and I'm guessing you're a werewolf, does this mean you're dangerous?"

That came out a lot blunter than Danny had intended, and he mentally slapped himself for saying it like that.

Much to Danny's surprise, Tucker started laughing. "You've been watching too many horror movies. How many werewolf attacks have there actually been in Amity Park?"

"Um, none?" Danny questioned.

"Exactly," replied Tucker. "We're more just people who're part wolf. Well, that's not exactly it, but we're not monsters."

"What Tucker's trying to say," Sam continued, "is that the legends of werewolves being monsters are because of people's prejudices, and the small minority of werewolves who actually hurt others. People tend to fear what they don't understand, and the supernatural community's the most misunderstood of all."

Danny wasn't quite following, but got the gist of it. "What do you mean by the supernatural community?"

"Well, there are a lot more supernatural beings out there," Sam said, as though it was the most normal thing in the world. "I found out about it when I was five and Grandma Ida saw me making a plant grow with magic. Since then I met others in the supernatural community. There's a mutual agreement that we support each other."

Tucker nodded along. "Amity Park's a bit of a hotspot for the community, there's loads of us here. Just wait until we introduce you, the market's the best place in the world."

Mrs Foley coughed. "At the weekend. You and your friends have school."

Tucker groaned, but to his credit he didn't complain.

Danny looked just about ready to faint. "But, I'm not part of the supernatural community."

"Dude, you turned invisible and fell through the floor earlier, that's supernatural if I ever saw it," Tucker chuckled, looping an arm around his friend's shoulders. "Huh, do you think you could do that stuff now? Just think of all the pranks you could pull with powers like those?"

Mrs Foley coughed, and Tucker quickly added. "Not that we'd actually pull any pranks with them." He shot Danny a wink, and Danny snorted. As odd as this whole situation was, he couldn't help but find some sense of normalcy in Tucker's sense of humour.

"Um, how would I do it?" Danny asked. "I only did those stuff by accident before."

"I don't know, maybe just think about it?" Tucker suggested.

Sam interrupted. "That's terrible advice Tucker, there's no way that would work-" She was cut off by Danny's yelp as he fell through the armchair. The entire group rushed over to his side, where he was half in the chair, and half sinking into the floor as if it were a shallow pool. Tucker smirked victoriously, and Sam shook her head, a smile pinching at the corners of her mouth. They pulled Danny up and out by his arms, and he staggered a bit on his feet on they got him standing.

"Okay, first priority: get those powers under control. We don't want to get exposed," Mrs Foley commanded. "And you'll need to avoid blood tests until we know how it's affected you."

Danny nodded, not quite understanding the gravity of the situation.

The next hour or so was spent practicing turning intangible and invisible, until Danny could do it consistently at will. By the time dinner came around he was thoroughly exhausted, but rather proud of himself. He slumped into a chair at the table, mouth watering at the smell of the meatloaf Mrs Foley was bringing over to the table. Mr Foley was also sat at the table, but seemed to have been filled in on the situation, judging by his lack of protest to Danny's presence.

"So, what's this I hear about ghost powers?" he asked as his wife placed a meatloaf on the table.

Sam seemed to have produced a tofu dish from somewhere, and Danny wasn't going to question it. He'd just been displaying the basic abilities of a ghost, so this was relatively normal in his opinion. "I kinda was in a portal to the Ghost Zone when it turned on," Danny said quietly, the topic seeming almost taboo to talk about, though he couldn't quite put his finger on why - it was just a touchy subject. The electric shock seemed to simmer just below his skin at the thought of what had happened and it freaked him out. "Hey, Sam, Tucker," the two turned to face him, Tucker with his face full of meatloaf. "When I came out the portal, I looked… different. Do you think I can change my appearance?"

Sam hummed, a forkful of tofu halfway to her mouth. "Maybe, it's worth a try."

"I'm not gonna be much use from sunset, but I'll be there for moral support," Tucker chimed in.

"Thanks guys," Danny said before digging into his own plate of food, his appetite suddenly renewed with his mood.

After both Danny and Tucker finished their second helpings of food, the trio headed up to Tucker's room. The room was cosy, with a bulky computer sat under a desk in the corner, with an equally large monitor on top of the desk being the main feature of the room. Coloured wires were everywhere, and several video game cases were lined up along a shelf overhead.

Tucker flopped out on his squishy bed, bouncing his plush toys (which had tooth marks in them now that Danny looked more closely, like a dog, or rather, a wolf, had been at them) onto the floor. Danny made himself comfy in the red beanbag on a worn technicolour rug, while Sam sat cross legged on the floor.

"What did you do to change back after you came out the portal?" Tucker asked. "Did you just think about it or something?"

Danny nodded, and Tucker burst into a fit of giggles. "Are you kidding me? Do you just have to think about it for all of your powers?"

"I don't know!" Danny cried, clearly embarrassed by his friend's antics.

"Okay, okay," Tucker jumped up and closed his heavy curtains, "go for it."

Danny focused for what must have been a full minute before the rings of light emerged from his waist once again, enveloping his form, revealing a primarily black jumpsuit with white gloves, boots and collar. His exposed skin gained a tan colour and his hair turned a pure, snow white. His entire form was surrounded by a faint ghostly glow, which only seemed to become amplified when he opened his neon green eyes, shining towards his friends with both fear and excitement.

"Woah, it worked!" Danny looked down at his form, floating a few inches in the air. Sam and Tucker stared with mouths agape, their amazement almost palpable.

"Can you fly?" Sam asked, small vines roping around the bedpost in her fired up state.

"Uh," Danny said dumbly, and began gently drifting forward. It wasn't much, but it was something.

Tucker slapped the vines off his bed, shooting Sam a glare before speaking to Danny. "Do you think you can go faster?"

Danny focused, then rocketed forward, colliding with the wall and dropping to the floor like a badly thrown paper airplane.

"Maybe you should have gone intangible?" Sam suggested, which prompted a "duh" from Danny as he stood up and walked back over to the bean bag.

The next hour 45 minutes were, much like earlier, spent practicing ghost powers, this time with an emphasis on flying, and combining flying with intangibility, until Mrs Foley shouted from downstairs. "Tucker, get downstairs!"

Tucker glanced at the clock, and sprang up from his bed, where he had taken to throwing and catching his teddy bear. "Oh, it's almost night. Don't freak if a wolf comes back in here later Danny, it's just me. Oh, and you can have my bed if your want. Anyway, gotta go, Mom says full moons are family time."

Danny nodded numbly as Tucker ran out the room.

"I should probably go home now before my parents freak out. Have fun with Fluffy." Sam waved to Danny, before leaving him alone in the bedroom.

Anxiety pressed against Danny's throat, and he was half-expecting to hear screaming and/or howling from downstairs. Apparently he was wrong, and Danny passed the time in the quiet by continuing to practice flying. Out of all the powers he'd gained that day, flying was definitely his favourite, though the concentration needed to avoid crashing did put a hamper on the experience. He honestly wanted to go flying outside, but decided against it - he didn't need to go freaking people out on his first day as a ghost, half-ghost - God this was confusing. Why couldn't his life just be simple?

Danny changed back to his human form in mid air, landing on the bed below him with a thump. A glance at the digital alarm clock on the bedside table told him it was 9:28 pm. Each of his limbs felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, the day's exhaustion catching up with him, but he pressed through the drowsiness to grab his bag from the floor and head into the bathroom.

Pulling his pyjamas out of the top of the bag, Danny quickly got changed, carrying his day clothes in one arm back to the bedroom. It only now occurred to him that he'd forgotten a change of underwear, but at this point he was too tired to care, simply giving himself a small mental slap.

Danny noticed that Tucker was still not back in his bedroom when he pushed the ajar door more open, and he wondered if he was going to be sleeping downstairs until he heard the sound of paws scampering up the stairs towards him.

A wolf with markings like large glasses around its eyes was trotting along the landing, and Danny had to fight the panic that was rising inside him at the sight of what should be a wild animal approaching him. That was, until the wolf rolled its eyes and pushed past him into the bedroom. No, now Danny was fighting panic at the fact that his best friend was a wolf. He really shouldn't have been surprised - Tucker had told him that he was a werewolf, but it was still a shock to the system to see.

Danny followed the wolf, Tucker, into the bedroom, placing his bag in the corner and flopping out on the bed, trying not to show that he was very much out of his depth in the situation. Tucker settled down next to the bed on the rug, turning in a circle before lying down. Danny closed his eyes, then realised that he'd left the light on, and got up to switch it off before finally settling under the covers.

As much as Danny was utterly exhausted, his brain was just starting to catch up with the information of the day, and it hit him like a freight train.

"Hey, Tuck?" he asked, knowing full well that his friend was unlikely to be capable of a proper answer at the moment. "Am I not human anymore?" His voice cracked and tears began to pour down his face part way through the sentence. Danny wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and lowered it just to find a cold nose poking his elbow.

Tucker scrambled onto the bed, and rested next to Danny, his warm, layered fur soft to the touch. Danny buried his face in his best friend's shoulder, letting the tears leave his eyes unimpeded, sobs wracking his form as he drew shaky breaths.

• • •

The beeping of an alarm clock brought Danny from the depths of sleep, and he glanced in the direction of the clock, only to notice that a very human, thankfully fully-clothed Tucker was next to him, trying to hit the alarm clock without opening his eyes (and missing repeatedly). The alarm clock seemed louder than usual to Danny, but that might have just been because he was unusually drained. Regardless, Danny's ears were ringing by the time Tucker finally managed to switch off the alarm, knocking the clock to the floor in the process.

Tucker stood from the bed, glasses on, which can't have been comfortable to sleep in, and blinked the sleep out of his eyes. He reached a hand out, lifting Danny out of bed, something that Danny was grateful for, as he hadn't been sure if his legs would work.  
"Are you okay, man?" Tucker asked, genuine concern etched on his face.

Danny froze, recalling the events of the previous day. Oh, yeah, he'd totally been crying last night, in case the flakes of tears dried to his eyelids weren't enough to convince him.

"Yeah, I'm fine." A lie, a blatant lie.

"By the way, I don't think it matters whether you're human or not, but it can help to think of yourself as a mutant - like the X-Men," Tucker said, voicing the thoughts he'd been incapable of verbalising the night before.

Coming from a werewolf, this was probably to be expected, Tucker had been dealing with the dilemma of not being fully human his entire life. It was surprisingly good advice, sending a wave of confidence and comfort through Danny, enough to allow him to pull himself out of his thoughts. "Thanks, Tuck." A light smile spread across Danny's features, and Tucker's eyes creased knowing he'd been able to help with Danny's crisis.

"No problem. That's what friends are for."

The two boys made their way downstairs, tempted by the smell of pancakes.

"Thanks for the pancakes, Mrs Foley," Danny said, pouring syrup on his plateful.

"It's no problem, you're our guest," she responded, digging into her own stack.

"Yeah, she'd never go to this much effort if your weren't 'round," Tucker spoke through his goopy mess of a meal, ignoring the glare sent his way by his mother.

The end of the meal led to Danny realising that he'd also forgotten his toothbrush in his haste to leave yesterday, and he made a note to create a overnight pack for the future while using a new toothbrush that Tucker had given him from the cupboard. Apparently werewolves needed a lot of toothbrushes because they were a bit stronger than they realised in the time approaching a full moon and their teeth were both larger and sharper than a regular human's.

Danny wondered if his condition had any similar side effects, besides the slow breathing and heart rate Mrs Foley had commented on when he first arrived. He'd have to check later.

The entire walk to school Danny had wanted to talk about the supernatural, but bit his tongue, knowing that he really shouldn't in public. Talking about secrets in public was a surefire way to get exposed, and he wasn't even sure he could explain any of this stuff away to his own parents, forget about a complete stranger, without huge fear and risk.

Sam joined them outside the classroom, and they sat together in Mr Lancer's class, feeling a lot closer than they had previously, despite sitting in the exact same seats as usual. Keeping a mutual secret life away from others had that effect, Danny supposed.

Mr Lancer entered the room and seemed rather surprised to see Danny there. Okay, that was odd. Danny glanced to his side to see both Sam and Tucker had picked up on this reaction and were on edge.

The lesson seemed ten times longer than usual, and Mr Lancer's drone was less boring and more just incomprehensible with Danny's nerves jittering. By the time the lesson was finished, Danny felt like sprinting away, but was called out by the teacher. "Mr Fenton, may I have a word after the lesson. The rest of you may go."

Danny felt like he was walking towards the gallows as he approached Mr Lancer's desk, the swarm of teens leaving in haste moving in slow motion. Sam and Tucker adamantly stuck by his side as he stood in front of the teacher's desk.

"Must you two stay?" Mr Lancer asked Sam and Tucker, to which they promptly insisted that they did, in fact, have to stay. Mr Lancer sighed and rubbed his temples, before closing the door and locking it.

"Daniel, has anything happened recently that you might like to tell me?"

Danny's stomach dropped. Oh no, he knew didn't he. How did he know?

"No?"

Mr Lancer cocked an eyebrow, and sat forward, hands clasped on his desk.

Tucker patted Danny on the back. "It's okay Danny, Lancer's a seer, he probably already knows."

Mr Lancer nodded and spoke calmly. "That is correct, Mr Foley, and the fact that you are telling Mr Fenton this suggests that he's a member of the supernatural community. Care to explain why I saw Mr Fenton's apparent death?"

"The Ghost Portal," breathed Danny, and Mr Lancer gestured to continue. "My parents built a portal to the Ghost Zone, and it-" Danny felt his throat tighten up. Talking about this to the Foleys was one thing, it was a comforting environment, but to his teacher, it felt like too personal of a thing to openly share.

"It's okay, you don't have to tell me, I just want to know what happened afterwards. Are you well now?" Mr Lancer soothed, his eyes unblinkingly locked on the raven-haired teen.

"I'm part ghost, but I'm still alive," Danny said, unsure of how much his teacher already knew. "I'm fine now, really."

"A halfa?" Mr Lancer questioned, his eyes glazing over like marbles. "Well, I never thought I'd see another, but let me tell you, Daniel, you do not need to bear the weight of the world on your shoulders. My office is open to anyone who needs to talk.

"With that out the way, I would like to wish you a good day. I suppose you will be getting a formal introduction to the supernatural community at the weekend."

"How did you know?" Danny cried, "oh, right, you're a seer." This whole supernatural community thing would take a lot of getting used to.

"Thank you, Mr Lancer," he said as Sam unlocked the door with some sort of skeleton key, literally, it looked like it was made of bones. The trio left the classroom, making their way to their next lesson, which they were somehow not late for, arriving just as the register was being taken.

The rest of the week passed in an anxious blur, and by the time the weekend came Danny could hardly stand still. He'd been spending evenings practicing his powers in his bedroom, and was pretty sure he had a good grip of them now, being able to handle invisibility, intangibility and flight all at the same time. He even managed to fly a bit in his human form, though it drained him like a triple-A battery trying to power a car.

His parents had been equally ecstatic, though for different reasons. With the portal up and running (though they still weren't sure how it had happened) the Fenton parents had been down in the lab 24/7, coming up only to cook or check on the kids, not that Danny was complaining about suddenly being left alone most of the time - it did mean he had more time to practice his powers in private.

The doorbell rang, and Danny grabbed a bag containing the essentials, in case of another overnight stay, and sprinted down the stairs, practically flying over the last step in his excitement, gliding the last foot a lot slower than gravity would normally allow. As odd as it was that he suddenly had supernatural powers, it felt natural to use them, and Danny actually found himself having to suppress them in public.

Sam was at the front door, her Grandma Ida and Tucker in tow, and Danny ran out to join them.

Ida eyed Danny curiously, obviously sensing that something was off about him. She wasn't the only one, Danny had noticed that cats seemed to be unusually affectionate towards him since the portal incident, and dogs seemed fearful, which honestly hurt him a bit to see.

Once they were far enough from the Fenton household, Ida led them down an alley, the walls marked with various graffiti artists' signatures, and a peculiar insignia, which resembled an alchemic or summoning circle, with little glyphs around the edges. Surely putting a magical marking where anyone could see it wasn't a good idea. If the supernatural community was as careful as they seemed to be about keeping their secrets, this was foolish.

"Only supernatural beings can see it," Sam explained, as though reading his mind, though with how expressive Danny's face was if wasn't out the question that he'd simply looked really confused or sceptical.

Ida tapped in the centre of the circle with her walking stick, the tip lighting up a bright violet as she did so. The light spread out along the lines of the runes, then the entire circular section of wall moved downwards with the column of wall below it, revealing a long sloped path lit by blue flaming fixtures.

The group made their way down the path, and everyone's breath except Danny's began to fog up before their faces.

"Are you going to explain your friend, Sammy?" enquired Ida, curious eyes boring into Danny's very soul.

Sam glanced at Danny, recognising the fact that his breath wasn't visible. "Danny, is it okay if I tell my grandma?"

Danny nodded.

"He's part ghost, or as Mr Lancer said, a halfa. There was an incident with the ghost portal, and he gained ghost powers, so we're introducing him to the supernatural community."

Ida hummed. "It's about time he found out. You lot have been best friends for ten years and you never told him? I'd be disappointed if I didn't know how strict the council is about staying secret.

"But a halfa, you say, we haven't heard about one of those for decades." Ida looked deep in thought for a moment before snapping back to reality. "A halfa is someone who's half ghost and half human. That's a rare gift you have there, boy, use it wisely."

Danny would've thought that she was going to reference some prophecy if it weren't for the cheeky glint in her eye and Sam's stories of her grandmother's pranks (many of which, in hindsight, probably included magic).

"There are others like me?!" Danny shrieked, his veins bubbling with hope.

Ida smiled and nodded sadly. "Yes, many in the past, but there's only been one other in the last century. The circumstances for one to be born are incredibly difficult - a connection between dimensions doesn't appear every day. And unfortunately the only other halfa to visit Amity hasn't returned since, oh, I'd say fifteen years ago. He met with the council, then left when he didn't get what he wanted. Goodness knows where he is now."

"Grandma, we're nearly there," Sam interrupted, and Danny turned his attention away from Ida to focus on the path ahead, which ended in an archway lined with glittering gemstones, leading into a huge open area with a water fountain in the middle of the square. The fountain was extravagant, with glowing crystals forming the majority of the structure, and grey rocks with small fragments of gemstones embedded in them made up the rim. The tiled floor was embedded with various dents and scorch marks, that clearly came from the beings of various shapes and sizes that filled the area, passing back and forth, many with shopping bags laden with odd contraptions, bottles of vibrantly coloured substances, and other strange objects that Danny couldn't identify from a distance.

Some of the beings appeared human, but Danny couldn't be sure - he was pretty sure that the pale guy sipping from a glass of what was either red wine or blood in a nearby bar was a vampire, though he could just have easily been a regular human with how strangely the people here dressed, his Victorian garb seeming relatively normal. It was like someone had mushed together every culture and time period in human history into one place, and then some.

An ogre stomped past, clad in a kilt, a tote bag clasped in its beefy hand, as Danny tried his best to stick close to his friends and Ida in the bustling area.

"Just a little further," said Ida, more to herself than anyone else, as they rounded a corner into an alleyway. The stone walled buildings had thatched roofs, and now they were out of the crowd Danny took a moment to look up and admire the constellations of sparkling gemstones on the the ceiling, a large cluster descending somewhere further off from the group of mostly-humans.

Sam practically dragged Danny with them into a nearby little shop, noticing that he was gawking at the ceiling. "Just wait until you see everything else here, it's awesome. We'll stay out of the housing area though, that's probably not important for you unless you make friends with a troll or something."

The shop they had entered was a dingy bookstore, cobwebs reaching across the corners and bookshelves despite the rest of the shop being immaculate. Of course, being a bookshop, there were books covering every inch of the walls, and a couple of tables dotted the limited floor space. A bored-looking teen with huge bat wings sat behind the counter, horned head buried in a heavy, hardback book.

"Since you're new to the supernatural community, we figured you might like to be able to do some reading about our history, and I think there might be a book about ghosts here," Tucker suggested eagerly, picking one of the few books in the english off the shelf and offering it to Danny.

The title read 'The Encyclopedia of Magical Beings', and the book itself was at least 600 pages long. Danny took the book in both his hands, reading the back. 'Rottingham's guide to every known being in the supernatural community is a perfect read for children or adults seeking knowledge about those they live with, and their social conventions.

Each fact has been checked with the members of each faction to ensure that the information contained in this book is correct, and is the ideal way to learn about the interesting individuals that make up our community, with illustrations by Ivory Penscribe.'

"It's a good read," Ida said, peering over Danny's shoulder. "I got Sam a copy when she joined the community, she read it nonstop for weeks." Sam nodded in confirmation of this statement.

The group went around the shop, picking out various books that they thought might be useful, or just that caught Danny's interest, placing them on the counter with significant effort.

The teen scanned each book and then returned the price.

"Don't worry, I'll cover it," Ida interrupted Danny before he could even argue that he'd pay. Of course, he wasn't actually sure if they accepted US dollars in the supernatural community, and was surprised when Ida paid with a $50 note.

Catching onto Danny's shock, Sam teased, "you didn't think we used knuts, sickles and galleons, did you?"

Danny coughed, prompting laughter from Sam and Tucker.

During the time of this exchange, the cashier had bagged all the books, and Danny was left heaving a sturdy bag full of books.

"Hide them well when you get home," Ida advised. "Your powers should come in useful for that."

Danny nodded, already planning all the places he could intangibly slip the book into, mostly in the wall and floor, but the mattress wasn't out the the question.

The group left the store, which Danny saw was named the Skulk and Lurk. Huh, he'd heard Sam talk about the store before, but just assumed it was a regular book store. It somewhat saddened him to think about how much his friends hadn't told him, but he was equally grateful to be included now.

"So, where are we going now?" Danny asked, trotting next to his friends with the bag hurled over his shoulder.

"Hmm, we need to pick up some more herbs while we're here, but after that we'll give you a tour," said Ida, making her way back out of the alleyway and into the main road, which led into a market, brightly coloured stalls stacked with odd products, from vials to charms to fruit and plants. Ida and Sam approached one of the vendors, discussing what to buy and holding various dried plants and jars of, well Danny wasn't sure what they were, probably some kinds of magical plants, but they looked weird. One of the jars contained something that looked almost like beans, but with blisters along it.

"Slightly overwhelming?" Tucker asked, clapping Danny on his shoulder without the bag on.

"Yeah, a bit," Danny replied with a light smirk.

Tucker grinned back. "I know I can't really relate, since I was introduced to the community as a little kid, but you can go home or somewhere quiet if it gets too much. This place is kinda crazy."

"Thanks Tuck." Danny shifted the bag on his shoulder to a more comfortable position. "I'm fine, really. It's awesome here."

Sam and Ida returned, a woven bag filled with supplies in Sam's hand. "Do you want to get something for yourself?" Sam offered, and Danny politely declined (if he did buy something, where would he put it?).

They were about to leave the market for the underground town centre, when a familiar obnoxious voice called out to them. "Fenturd?! What are you doing here?"

Danny groaned, and turned around, seeing Dash Baxter striding towards them from the crowd, or at least, Danny assumed it was Dash. The broad-shouldered boy approaching them had large protruding teeth on his lower jaw, an oddly blue complexion, and a whip-like tail.

Sam and Tucker jumped to Danny's defense, standing between him and Dash. "What's it matter to you, Dash?" asked Sam, arms folded.

Dash huffed. "It matters because he isn't part of the community, he's just a regular human with freaky parents."

The argument was beginning to draw attention, a small cluster of beings stopping their shopping to observe.

"Actually, he _is _part of the community," Sam leveled Dash with a glare, daring him to argue.

Dash, being the fool he was, decided to question them. "Oh, yeah, prove it." He pushed past Sam and Tucker to grab Danny by the front of his shirt, only to don a look of shock when he couldn't lay a finger on the smaller boy. Crud, Danny had turned intangible on reflex.

Dash swiped through what might have well just been the air, his hand passing through Danny a few times before he staggered back. "You're dead!?" he cried, fear creeping into his voice.

"What? No," Danny started. The memory of the portal accident still fresh in his mind, he wasn't entirely sure that he hadn't died, but denial was as good as anything.

Dash wouldn't let him explain, cutting him off mid sentence. "You weren't solid, only a ghost or a spirit can do that, and I know you sure as hell aren't a spirit. Oh, God, why'd you do it?"

"HE'S NOT DEAD!" shrieked Sam, unintentionally drawing the attention of anyone who wasn't already interested in their conversation.

Murmurs passed through the crowd, and a stout dwarf stepped forward, speaking with a heavy Welsh accent. "She's right, lad. I can hear his heartbeat."

The whispers grew in intensity, and a few appeared to suddenly be struck with fear.

"A halfa!" proclaimed a fairy, who quickly slapped a hand across their mouth and dove back into the depths of the crowd.

Danny glanced around, Sam and Tucker at his sides defensively, expecting to be attacked, but no attack came.

The onlookers were now chatting wildly, and a few newcomers to the situation struggled to get past into the market.

"What's going on here?" came a stern voice, and the crowd parted to let a tall woman with bold red hair tied into a tight bun through. Glasses sat on her small nose, and her entire face seemed to be pointed.

Her eyes then fell on the group of mostly-humans, in the middle, inspecting them with calculating eyes. "Again, would anyone mind to explain what's going on here?"

"That boy there's a halfa," supplied a rock creature, with much too long arms that dragged against the floor as the creature stepped forward. "He turned intangible, yet he's alive."

The fox-faced woman stood still. "Is this true?" She directed the question at Danny.

Danny opened his mouth to speak, but not sound came out, so he settled for a shaky nod.

The woman hummed, Sam and Tucker shuffled closer to Danny in support. "Come with me, your friends can come along too," she instructed, striding past them and in the direction of the large cluster of crystals on the ceiling.

"She's on the council, this is either really good, or really bad," Tucker muttered to Danny as they followed the lady through the streets, the crowds splitting as they followed the strict-looking lady.

"Oh," Danny said, not quite sure what was going on, his mind was still stuck on his classmate's appearance. "What was up with Dash?"

"He's a changeling, he can change his appearance between that and a human disguise. Sorry I didn't tell you," Tucker explained.

"There's a general agreement that you don't out each other among the community," Sam elaborated, then scowled. "Shame others couldn't be bothered to keep it for you…"

"It's fine. It could always be worse." Danny kept his eyes focused ahead as not to get lost in the winding passages of the town. He wasn't really sure how he felt, other than the anxiety that gripped his gut.

Ida spoke up from behind them. "I wouldn't worry too much - most of the people here are just surprised to see a halfa. Lots of children grow up hearing about them as legends, and Plasmius wasn't exactly sociable when he visited."

"Plasmius?" Danny asked.

Ida nodded. "That's what the last halfa to visit before you called himself. Weird man."

The councilwoman turned around to address them as they neared a towering building, grand pillars lining either side of the broad entrance. The cluster of crystals practically touched the point of the roof, illuminating the tiling with its soft glow. "You're not in any trouble, I just wanted us to be away from the crowd for this discussion." She gestured to the doorway ahead of them. "I'll find us a meeting room."

Danny felt like a small child as she led them through the lobby, and through crisply carpeted corridors. Many of the people standing around the building greeted the councilwoman formally, to which she briskly replied, continuing to stride past.

They finally stopped outside a room with a sign on the outside that could be flipped between occupied and vacant. The woman changed the sign to occupied and invited the group in.

Several large sofas took up the majority of the space, and a coffee table with a tissue box and clipboard on sat in the middle of the chairs. The floor was carpeted much like the hallways, with clearly visible worn pathways around the room, areas almost worn bare in front of the doorway and chairs. A tall, ornate window gave a view of a forest, the evergreen trees blowing gently in a breeze as sunlight streamed in through the leaves in patches.

"Take a seat," offered the woman, sitting down herself in a chair positioned such that it faced all the others.

Danny took one of the seats opposite her, his friends taking up sofas on either side, while Ida chose one slightly further away from the councilwoman, relaxing as she sank into the leathery fabric of the cushions.

The councilwoman lost a lot of her stern demeanor as she surveyed the children. "I suppose I should introduce myself: my name is Miss Rica Kyuu, I'm one of the twelve on the Amity head council.

I would like to apologise for the behaviour of the citizens in the market, it was not appropriate of them to single you out like that for your race. Mister…?"

"Fenton. Danny Fenton," he said quickly. "It's okay, it's not their fault."

"Pardon me, Fenton? Like the ghost hunters who live on the surface?" barked Miss Kyuu.

Danny nodded cautiously, and Sam and Tucker mirrored his tension.

"Are your parents aware of your status as a halfa?"

Danny shook his head - words weren't quite working for him right now.

"Ah, well, that does complicate things. Typically supernatural traits are passed on genetically, but I assume you weren't born as a halfa."

Danny nodded again.

"Then I would like to take this moment to welcome you to the supernatural community. While I sincerely hope that you find this community to be accepting, we do have certain rules:

One, you are not to inform non-supernatural individuals of our presence. I'm sure you can understand why we have this rule in place for our own safety. The Salem witch trials are not something any of us wish to be repeated on a larger scale."

Danny gulped and Sam looked rather uncomfortable.

"Secondly, much like in any other set of laws, you may not cause harm to others or their property." Miss Kyuu quickly became bored with listing rules, instead choosing to summarise them, "etceteria, etceteria. Overall, our laws are not dissimilar to that of the USA as a whole, simply with additional strict laws preventing us from being exposed to the general population.

You may inform your immediate family of yourself and the community, but they will then be bound by our laws themselves, and punished appropriately if they inform others outside of the community.

With that out of the way, we have help available in terms of controlling abilities towards the front of the building, and I wish you a good day. Do you have any questions?"

"No thanks, I'm good," Danny managed to force out quietly.

"Very well then, shall we leave?" commanded Miss Kyuu, falling back into her strict facade.

The room was evacuated, and the sign flipped back to vacant. Miss Kyuu hastily walked away down the corridor, into the deeper recesses of the building, leaving the group to walk back towards the entrance.

"Man, I don't think I've ever heard of anyone being personally greeted by a member of the council," Tucker commented once Miss Kyuu was out of sight. "Should we be worried or honored?"

"Both. It's because, halfas have historically been incredibly powerful," Ida explained, broaching the topic slowly. "I wouldn't be surprised if she saw Danny as a threat of sorts."

Danny was dumbfounded. "I'm not exactly a threat though, am I?"

"Perhaps not, but the council have had a lot of tension over the years. They're all incredibly old and powerful beings, and they've likely seen previous halfas over the centuries," Ida sighed. "Try to keep a low profile and make sure to appear friendly. You seem to have made a good impression so far."

Sam interjected, "there's something else, isn't there?"

Ida gave a sly grin at the scepticism of her granddaughter. "They could also be trying to recruit Danny for the council when he's older. Either way, he needs to keep his wits about him."

Danny wasn't really happy about this. First ghost powers, then a supernatural community, then this. Danny's nerves jittered and a cold prickling sensation of ectoplasm reminded him that he was really out of his depth at the moment.

The walk back had an unspoken tension to it as the new information sank in.

A few people, mostly children, approached Danny to ask if it was true that he was a halfa. Apparently word had spread quick. At least the interactions were mostly positive.

As the group made their way back up the tunnel they entered through, Danny voiced one of the questions he'd had throughout most of the interactions with strangers on the walk. "Y'know earlier, how you mentioned Plasmius, what's he like?"

Ida back to him, leading the way down the path. "I didn't meet him personally, I just heard about him through the grapevine."

Noticing that all three of the children were interested, Ida continued. "Apparently he flew into the Crystal - that's the name of the building where we met with Miss Kyuu, Danny - and demanded a meeting with the council. They never said what happened in the meeting, but Plasmius stormed out like he was ready to kill someone. Then he just dropped off the face of the earth."

"And no one's heard about him since?" Sam asked, and Ida shook her head.

"No, and that was about fifteen years ago."

The path seemed to end, but as they approached the blank wall at the end it opened up like it had on the way in, leading out into the alley. It was now mid afternoon, and Danny recalled that he had homework to do for the Monday.

Saying their goodbyes, and Ida and Sam extended an invitation to Danny to visit their house, something that Danny readily accepted, excited to learn more about his friends' and now his world.


	2. Chapter 2: Family of Friends

Danny spent that evening reading the Encyclopedia of Magical Beings, the rest of his books stuffed in the walls and floor. It was a surprisingly good read, and soon Danny found himself engrossed in the book. He was just skimming the section on gnomes when he heard a knocking at his door. Stuffing the book into his mattress, Danny called out "come in."

Jazz opened the door, and walked in, eyeing Danny suspiciously.

"Hi, little brother," she greeted, and Danny returned it, cautious about what she might be here to talk about. She couldn't have worked out his secret already, right?

"I just wanted to check on how you're doing, since Mom and Dad are spending all their time in the lab."

Oh, that was a relief, she was just being her usual overbearing self.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I've been spending lots of time with my friends, and I got all my homework done," Danny replied cheerfully.

Jazz gave him a quizzical look. "Fine, as in, actually fine, or fine, as in, actually struggling with something but being too stubborn to admit it?"

Danny scowled in return. "Actually fine. Seriously, I'm not a little kid, Jazz."

"I'm not suggesting you are, I just know you tend to hide things until you can't deal with it any more, and I want to make sure you're doing okay." Jazz's tone was genuine, and now Danny felt a little bad for being snappy with her.

"Thanks," Danny said. "And you can always talk to me if you need to too."

"Love you Danny," Jazz walked back over to the doorway.

"Love you too," Danny replied, watching as she closed the door on her way out.

He fished the book out of the mattress, making a mental note not to touch a gnome's hat as he read. Danny was jolted out of his monotonous reading by the title of the next section: 'Halfas'. His heart leapt at the prospect of finding out more about other halfas and their abilities. Of course he'd been expecting a section on halfas ever since they were mentioned as distinct from ghosts earlier in the book, but it made him anxious and overjoyed all the same.

'Halfas are commonly defined as hybrids of humans and ghosts (see page 113), and as such share traits of both, such as a lower heart rate, body temperature and breathing rate than a regular human, while a ghost would not have heart rate at all and would not have to breathe. Halfas have ghost cores, however the way in which they are stored within the body is yet to be known due to the rarity of the beings. Due to their cores, halfas possess the powers of a ghost, and their human form allows for more stability and core growth than in a ghost, resulting in a wide variety of powers and significant strength, including, and not limited to invisibility, intangibility, flight, ecto energy manipulation, shape shifting, elemental powers (determined by core types, as described in the section on ghosts), telekinesis and telepathy. In addition to this halfas are able to change their appearance outside of typical shapeshifting abilities between human and ghostly forms, each of which has a distinctive appearance, and have more access to their powers in their ghostly form, but this is reportedly able to be circumvented by intensive training (noteably the case of Isabella Ingram, who is said to have despised the appearance of her ghost form so much that she refused to ever use it).

Halfas can be born either from a human and ghost procreating, two halfas having offspring (which is only assumed, as it is yet to be documented) or by a human having ectoplasm bond to their DNA. Typical ectoenergy exposure has not been found to lead to a person becoming a halfa, and as such the conditions required for the ectoplasm to fuse with the human body are unknown.

Being hybrid beings, halfas borrow traits from both humans and ghosts and their individual socialisation is dependent on whether they were primarily raised by humans or ghosts.

However, it should be noted that halfas born from humans exposed to ectoplasm often have traumatic memories of the event, not unlike a ghost's death, and as such one would be ill-advised to ask a halfa about it.

The most famous case of a halfa historically was Richard Pariahson, who was the child of Pariah Dark, the king of all ghosts. He was known for being a prominent magical leader in Northern Europe, and his death was one of the contributing factors towards Dark's eventual insanity and decline as a monarch.

Unfortunately, as of writing this book there were no halfas able to be contacted, so the information on the topic is lacking. This page is also missing an illustration for this same reason.'

The information being significantly shorter than on other pages wasn't surprising, but Danny could help but wish he had more to go off. He'd have to have a go at the other powers mentioned in the book, ecto energy manipulation really caught his attention as something he'd like to try.

Danny glanced at his alarm clock, which told him it was almost midnight. Slipping a scrap of paper from his sketchbook between the pages, he phased the book into the wall next to his bed for safe keeping. It was really odd how normal the supernatural had become to him in the past week, even if he still had the nagging thought in the back of his head that he was a freak. It felt more than ever like he belonged with his friends, the absence of secrets closing the gap between the trio.

• • •

Danny blurrily stared at the ceiling above him marked with plastic stars through his half-open eyelids, the sun streaming onto his face. He was only vaguely aware of having fallen asleep, his head having been swimming with thoughts of the supernatural community and his own powers.

Rolling out of bed, feet touching lightly on the worn carpet of his room. His alarm clock said it was ten in the morning, but it honestly felt more like the middle of the night with how drowsy Danny was.

A breakfast of sugary cereal later, and Danny felt like he had enough energy to go to Sam's, happy to take her and Ida up on their offer. Thinking back, Danny had never actually been to Sam's house before, and he was half-expecting a visibly magical or in some way remarkable house, not the expensive suburban house he arrived at after going to the address provided by Sam.

He knocked on the front door, a lot heavier than he intended, before realising that there was a doorbell. He was just about to reach up and ring it when the door was answered by a cross-looking woman with orange hair styled into a pristine curled do. "Yes?" she said, her eyes landing on the boy on her doorstep.

"Uh, hi," Danny stammered, immediately questioning if he'd come to the right house. "Sam and her grandma said I could visit, is Sam home?"

The woman inspected him with a scrutinising eye, eyes lingering on his scuffed up trainers, lips drawing into a straight line. "Yes, she's home. I'll go and get her to come downstairs."

She strode upstairs, hand brushing the banister lightly.

"Samantha, one of your friends is here to see you. I think he's one of the beings." The woman's voice carried down the stairs, and she spat out the last word like vitriol. Danny flinched, inferring a dislike that he didn't feel he'd earned.

Sam came thundering down the stairs, greeting Danny and tugging him into her bedroom, away from her mother. "I'm so sorry about my mom, she doesn't like anything to do with the supernatural."

"It's fine, it's not like you can do much about her," Danny dismissed. "Why doesn't she like supernatural stuff anyway, aren't you from a family of witches or something?"

Sam plopped down on her deep red sheets, hardly bouncing on the hard mattress. "Nah, that's just on my dad's side. Mom didn't know about any of it until Gran moved in with us. Turns out dad didn't inherit any magical abilities."

"Oh." Danny settled down on the chair by her desk, hands awkwardly on his legs.

There was a light knocking on the door, and it cracked open. Grandma Ida shuffled into the room, leaning heavily on the walking stick, which sank into the plush carpet of the room. "I knew I sensed that aura of yours," she addressed Danny, who had a shocked expression.

"You can do that?"

Ida chuckled. "Not that well, I'm just messing around. I heard Pamela's shouting."

"You're really taking advantage of him being new to the supernatural, aren't you Grandma?" Sam said, a slight grin tugging at her face.

Ida waved her hand about. "Can't go wasting the precious time while he's amazed by everything. Your friend Tucker doesn't believe me anymore."

"Maybe you shouldn't have told him that you went to Hogwarts."

"Where is Tucker right now anyway?" Danny asked, drawing the focus away from Ida's antics.

Sam checked her phone. "He'll be at the dentist until two. Do you never check your phone, Danny?"

Danny just shrugged in reply. "Won't the dentist notice that something's up?"

"There are dentists in the supernatural community, you know," Sam explained, and Danny was left wondering just how large the supernatural community was.

"I never asked, what does being a witch entail, if it's nothing like in Harry Potter?" Danny asked, swiveling around on the chair.

"Well, first of all we don't use wands. Uh, most of our magic's based around plants, curses and charms, stuff like that - nothing too flashy." Sam counted off points on her fingers. "Uh, wizards are completely different to witches, not just male counterparts - witches can be guys and girls. Wizards are the flashy ones." She paused in thought. "With a Harry Potter comparison, witches would be more into herbology and potions, and wizards would spell casting, transfiguration, stuff like that."

Danny nodded, understanding it a lot more after that explanation. He was still confused, but that was more of a permanent state at this point.

"Oh, right, I was reading the Encyclopedia of Magical Beings last night, and it listed a bunch of powers I don't have yet. Do you think we can try and learn them?" Danny turned his attention back to what he recalled of the section of the book on halfas.

Sam pulled a worn copy of the book off her bookshelf next to the bed, the spine creased and cover peeling apart at the corners, and flicked through to the part on halfas.

"Which one do you want to try first?" she asked, just as curious as Danny was as to what he was capable of.

Danny rubbed the back of his neck. "Um, I was thinking about ecto energy manipulation. I'd also be interested in elemental powers, but the section on ghosts says that they don't get elemental powers until their core solidifies, and I don't know if mine's quite old enough for that yet."

Ida leaned forward on her walking stick, reminding Danny that she was still standing and he should really have offered her his seat. "If I remember correctly, it takes at least a few weeks on average for a ghost's core to properly develop to a basic point, so you're a bit away from being able to use any sort of advanced power."

Danny vacated his seat, offering it to Ida, who reluctantly sat down, thanking him as she lowered herself onto the chair.

"Okay, so elemental powers are a no go, but we might as well start with ecto energy manipulation then." Sam left the book open on her bed, and slid over to the side of the mattress. "What have you got?"

Danny looked deep in thought, trying to work out how to word his feelings. "I can sort of feel the energy under my skin, which is the first step to controlling it, right?"

Sam shrugged. "That's how it is with magic, but I'm not sure how helpful that is. It's hard to explain, I guess you move the energy to where and how you want it with magic."

"That's as good of a method as any," Danny said, before focusing on his hand.

He felt the cold tingle of ectoplasm in his veins, and they glowed a slight green under his influence. Sam gasped at the show, which only encouraged Danny further.

The energy rippled like water, and Danny tried his best to form it into a ball in his hand. A soft, glowing orb appeared in his palm, and he redoubled his efforts into moving more energy into the ball. It was soon glowing vibrantly, casting the room into a green light. Danny's hand prickled like pins and needles under the energy, and his eyes widened at what he had done. "Woah, I did it!" he cried, the orb dissipating as he lost concentration.

He suddenly felt really drained, sitting down on the floor before he risked collapsing.

"Woah, Danny, are you okay?" Sam exclaimed, sitting bolt upright.

"Yeah, just a bit tired." The icy energy was already flowing back into his hands, and he pushed himself up off the carpet. "I think I'm ready to try again."

Then he stopped, and ran over to yank the curtains shut. Sam was about to question this, when rings of light changed Danny into his ghost form. "I had an idea," he said, in way of explanation. "It's a lot easier to fly in this form, so maybe the energy's the same."

"That is a good idea," Sam replied as Danny floated back over to where he had been standing earlier. His increase in skill from practicing over the past few days was evident in how fluidly he moved, gliding as if the laws of physics did not exist.

He once again focused the energy into his hand, but this time the ball of energy formed a lot faster, becoming near solid. Danny threw it into the air, testing how stable it was, and it floated down into his cupped hands.

"Can I touch it?" Sam asked, no longer bothering to hide her curiosity. Danny nodded hesitantly, unsure if that was entirely safe.

Sam extended a single finger to probe the orb, and swiftly withdrew it hissing. Danny let the orb dissipate once again upon seeing this, and frantically asked her if she was alright.

Sam shook out her hand. "Yeah, it's fine, just stings a little, that's all. Can't you feel it?"

Danny shook his head. "I can feel it, but it's more like a light pins and needles feeling, not that."

"May I see your hand?" Ida requested from the chair, reminding the two of her presence. Sam put her hand out, and Ida pushed her glasses up her nose and inspected the fingertip.

"It looks slightly red, but other than that it seems fine," Ida concluded, allowing Sam to return to sitting on her duvet.

It wasn't long before Danny was able maintain the orbs outside of his hands, even if not for long, and all was going fine until Danny placed an unusually large ball on the ground. He'd been experimenting with how to create the constructs of energy and apparently this specific one was a bad idea, as it began to hiss as it singed the carpet.

"Uh, that's not good," Danny was on the line between panic and utter confusion. He froze as the orb drew in on itself like a black hole and exploded, creating a flash of light and a burnt patch on the carpet.

Sam shuffled forward to inspect what had happened, eyes widening when she saw the fried area.

"I'm so sorry, Sam. I didn't realise it would do that." Danny had fully tipped into panic now.

"It's fine Danny," Sam said nonchalantly. "Grandma and I have done that loads, we actually charmed the room to repair itself."

True to her words, the threads had begun to grow out and weave back into the pristine carpet that had been there before the explosion. Danny stared on in shock. "Woah, that's awesome!"

Sam just shrugged, and Ida had a face-splitting grin at Danny's reaction.

Tucker chose this moment to enter the room. "What's up guys? TF, for too fine, is here."

"Danny discovered that my room repairs itself," Sam explained, flicking her eyes to Danny, who had stood up after the ectoblast incident.

Tucker whistled. "You managed to cause that much damage already?"

Danny gave an offended choking noise. "You underestimate my abilities to destroy stuff."

"What did you even do?" Tucker asked, plopping down on the bed a respectable distance from Sam.

"I was trying out ectoenergy manipulation, and one of the balls of energy I made exploded." Danny made a glowing green orb in his hand in demonstration, which thankfully didn't explode.

Tucker's eyes went wide. "Dude, I didn't know you could do that. That's so cool! You could totally use that."

Danny crossed his legs in the air, tossing the ball from hand to hand. "What for? Other than lighting and blowing stuff up?"

"Exactly that." Tucker gestured wildly with his hands. "What else can you do?"

Danny shrugged. "Not sure, I just started trying to learn this stuff earlier. I could try shooting beams of energy, if that's okay, Sam?"

Sam put her hands behind her head and leaned back. "Go nuts, it's one hell of an achievement if you can do permanent damage to this room."

Danny's first few attempts just resulted in exploding orbs of energy that drifted down gently before exploding forming in his palms, and he looked to his friends for help.

Tucker began miming the Kamehameha attack from Dragon Ball Z, holding his hands by his side before thrusting them forward, prompting snorts of laughters from the other two teens.

Danny decided that he might as well humor Tucker, and built up a ball of energy in his hands, throwing them forwards and unleashing the ball. The energy from the ball and his hands tore forward in a beam, burning half the way through the wall.

It was in this moment that Sam and Tucker lost their shit, collapsing into giggles at Danny's face, blank with shock.

"I can't believe that worked," breathed Sam between laughs.

Danny recovered from his shock a bit, spinning round when Ida started clapping. He took a mock bow, which sent Sam and Tucker into further laughter, while his own face was now sporting a shy grin of its own.

Following the discovery of how to shoot beams of energy, which Danny worked on repeating without the charge up, he worked on regulating the amount of energy he put into his shots, varying them from tiny blasts that barely even left a mark, to attacks of similar strength to the one he did initially (nothing stronger for fear of blasting all the way through the wall).

The shouts of Sam's mother to come down for dinner interrupted the training, and she begrudgingly invited Danny and Tucker to eat with them.

Shifting back into his human form, Danny followed his friends, while Ida took longer, taking the elevator downstairs. The dining room they entered was moderate in size, but was clearly made for show. Danny tried not to react to the expensive china in the cupboards along the wall, painted with intricate floral patterns.

An elongated table covered in a pretty, white tablecloth with lace edges took up the majority of the room, with a curved doorway leading into the kitchen. Sam's mother and a blond man who Danny assumed must be her father were already stood by the table, pausing by their chairs.

"H..hi," Danny greeted, waving awkwardly. The stoney response of the Mansons replied, and Danny took a seat with his friends, at the other end of the table to Sam's parents. It felt a lot further than it was, being only a couple of seats of distance, but it still helped to separate the groups.

Ida joined the teenagers at their end of the table, and Pamela scowled at the sight of the woman, as if wishing she'd die there and then. Food was served on platters for those seated around the table to help themselves from, with the exception of Sam, who ate a vegan vegetable curry on rice as opposed to the roast that the rest were having.

With food dished out, the family plus two began to eat, with a tense silence permeating the room.

"So," Sam's father made an attempt at conversation, "what were all those explosions about upstairs?"

Sam glanced anxiously to her friends, who were both frozen in their seats.

"We were experimenting," she said after some deliberation. Pamela's scowl deepened.

"What do you mean experimenting?" Pam asked incredulously. "You'd better not have been doing something dangerous-"

"We weren't." Sam cut her off.

A few quiet moments passed before the inhabitants of the room resumed their eating.

Pamela abandoned the last bit of her meal in favour of leaving the room, heading out into the hallway and up the stairs. Mr Manson sighed a bone deep sigh, and did his best to keep a facade of not being completely resigned to whatever fate he feared he was facing.

"Seriously, what were you doing up there?" he asked, more tired than anything else.

Sam shifted awkwardly, not willing to out her friend's secret. It had been bad enough when they had found out about Tucker, prohibiting her from meeting up with him for a week or so before realising that there was no way she'd ever listen to their demands, or rather, her mother's demands.

Danny spoke up quietly. "I was trying out some powers." He refused eye contact, and if he had he would have seen the disbelieving look Mr Manson held.

"How long have you kept it a secret from me and your mother that you had another supernatural friend?" Mr Manson asked, wrinkling his nose slightly.

"In my defense-" Sam began, and Danny picked up when she trailed off.

"I've only been a part of the community for less than a week, it was an accident really."

Mr Manson processed what the boy had said,eyes widening in shock at the implications of what he'd just said. "You mean to tell me that there's a way for a regular human to become a supernatural being?" Then his face darkened. "He wasn't bitten by a werewolf, was he?"

Tucker scraped his knife against the plate painfully loud when cutting another piece of meat. "You've got it all wrong. Besides, that's not even how being a werewolf works, you have to be born that way."

Mr Manson relaxed slightly, then knitted his eyebrows together in confusion. "Then how is he a member of the supernatural community all of a sudden?"

"Danny, you don't have to tell anyone if you don't want to," Sam reminded, placing a hand on his knee.

Danny nodded to her, his eyes screaming that he didn't want to make the situation any more hostile. "I, um," he began hesitantly, "I'm a halfa - a human-ghost hybrid."

The sound of cutlery dropping from across the table could be heard, and Jeremy was wide eyed, gaping at him. "How? What?"

Danny fidgeted with the bottom of his t-shirt, eyes downcast. "Please don't tell anyone, especially not my parents," he pleaded, only to have his turn to be surprised when Mr Manson placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"I wouldn't dream of it. Your parents are ghost hunters, only a monster would out you like that."

"Huh?" That was not what Danny was expecting from one of the parents who had seemed to despise the supernatural, although that may have just been a result of his wife's influence. "Thank you."

Danny agreed that it was okay for Mrs Manson to know the bare bones of what he was, with emphasis being placed on him being a human with abilities, while Mr Manson agreed to try and sway his wife on the matter of the supernatural, and try and temper the situation should it escalate. Overall, it was a positive interaction, even if there was an underlying level of ignorance on Mr Manson's part, something that his mother openly chastised him for.

Danny couldn't help but wonder if part of it might have been to do with Mr Manson being jealous, being a non-magical person from a line of witches, and therefore unwilling to indulge in a community that he could never truly be a part of.

The setting sun cast a fiery orange glow over the slightly browning leaves of the trees, which carried the first hints of autumn, and the streetlights flickered on as Danny neared his home.

He unlocked the door and sighed gently at the sight of an empty living room as he entered. It was sad, really, his parents hadn't even tried to call him, but he felt a reassuring tug at his heart (core? whatever was in his chest feeling emotions at that moment) at the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. "Did you have fun with your friends?" Danny's mom asked, auburn hair framing the bags under her eyes.

"Yep," Danny replied cheerfully, before switching to concern as he noticed how utterly exhausted his mother looked. "Jeez, are you okay Mom. You look like you haven't slept in ages."

Maddie paused, before reluctantly admitting, "your father and I haven't exactly slept much since the portal started working. I'll see if I can get him to go to bed soon. Thanks for your concern Danny." She gave him a hug, and made her way back down to the lab.

The Fenton couple had a habit of overworking themselves when they got really invested in a project or idea, and Danny couldn't blame them for not sleeping much with an interdimensional portal under their feet.

Danny sat down to continue reading, keeping an ear out for his parents or Jazz as he opened onto a page on imps. Before long, he was lost in the book as he had been the previous evening. He was admittedly tempted to skip forward to the sections on werewolves and witches to find out more about his friends, but pushed it aside as he found out about one interesting being after another. It still shocked him just how many supernatural beings were hiding right in plain sight, and then he recalled that he was now one of them - a half ghost hiding in a family of ghost hunters.

The thundering steps of Jack Fenton came up the stairs, something that could be heard from miles away, but they were admittedly less loud than usual - probably due to exhaustion finally catching up with him. Danny hid the book in his mattress just before the smiling face of his father poked into his room.

"Hey Danno. Mom and I will be going to sleep now, remember to go to bed relatively soon yourself."

"'Night Dad," Danny said cheerfully. "Love you."

"Love you too Danny." Jack came in and gave him a loose hug (yeah, he was definitely tired if he wasn't doing his usual bear hug).

Danny pulled out his book again when his dad had left the room, and settled down to read a few more pages before bed.

• • •

The ringing of the alarm clock was as brutal as ever, and Danny slammed his hand down on the top of the clock. Crunch. The clock broke and splintered under his palm, and Danny felt the sharp jab of plastic shards in his hand.

He opened his bleary eyes and saw the wreckage that remained of his alarm clock. It wasn't even smoking, so an ectoblast was unlikely - did he have super strength? It wasn't out of the question with all his other powers, but still made him simultaneously excited and scared.

Sweeping the clock into the bin, he made a mental note to set an alarm on his phone and put it further away tomorrow.

Danny walked towards the school, following his usual route on muscle memory, his mind elsewhere.

His status as a halfa was now common knowledge in the magical community, and he wasn't looking forward to finding out just how many of his peers were in the community, not with how Dash reacted the other day. Oh, crud, Dash. Danny hadn't spoken to him since their confrontation, and he wondered how his bully would react to him now.

A few passersby seemed to be staring, although that may have just been Danny's paranoia.

The school now loomed in front of him, it's entrance filled by a crowd of teenagers, most of whom looked normal, completely unaware that supernatural beings walked among them. Danny had been one of them. Had.

Was he panicking? Yes. Was it justified? Maybe not. Did it catch Sam and Tucker's attention as they approached the school too? Definitely.

"Hey, Danny, are you alright?" Sam queried, voice tinged with concern.

Danny snapped out of his internal monologue, noticing that his friends were at his sides.

"Yeah, just-" He shut his mouth, almost biting his tongue in his haste. He was worried, but he was almost embarrassed to put it to words in front of his friends.

"I get ya," Tucker said sympathetically, placing a hand on Danny's shoulder to guide him into the school.

The trio made it to their lockers, which were conveniently in the same block. Less fortunate was the fact that Dash also had a locker in this block. He edged cautiously towards the group, ripping open his locker but glancing around it at the halfa. Slamming the locker closed, he grabbed Danny by his collar on the way past. "Lunch, in the back of the parking lot."

Danny was left dumbfounded by the short interaction, even after Dash turned the corner to his first lesson of the day. He gulped, and made his way to his own lesson, thankfully not shared with Dash.

Lunch came too quickly, and it felt to Danny like the lessons had been a blur of information that never really entered his brain.

Sam and Tucker flanked either side as he made his way to the car park, as per Dash's orders, and Dash stood there, leaned up against the wall, alone.

Danny blinked. Huh, Dash really just wanted to talk or something. He never went anywhere without his cronies, and looked oddly vulnerable in the empty tarmac zone. Dash seemed to jump when he saw Danny, his eyes flicking over to Sam and Tucker, nowhere near as surprised by their presence.

"I just wanted to say sorry," he blurted out after an awkward moment of staring between him and Danny, and Danny's eyes widened. "Who'd've thought you were a halfa?" Dash turned his eyes to focus on his folded arms.

Danny stood there, gaping like a fish out of water. "Uh, it's fine. It's not a big deal."

Dash caught onto the double meaning of the second sentence, and nodded nervously. "I get it, but I acted really insensitively. Welcome to the community anyway...What I'm trying to say is, if you need to talk to someone about trying to fit in, in both halves, I'm all ears."

"Huh?" Danny didn't mean to sound rude, but it came out without him willing it to. "I, um, thanks Dash." Of course Dash would understand his situation, he was a changeling - both human and magical being. Perhaps he even saw Danny as a kindred spirit now.

"Oh, and by the way Fenton, you ought to know that Paulina's also part of the community - and so's Mr Lancer, so you can go to him for help."

"Thanks." Danny really didn't know how to continue this conversation. Ask Dash about what it was like being a changeling? Probably not appropriate, not in a public area anyway.

Dash slipped Danny a ragged piece of paper with numbers roughly written upon it. "Here, my phone number. If you want to call or text."

Danny looked from the piece of paper to Dash and back again, before nodding. "Got it."

"Anyway, see ya." Dash waved a large hand as he turned and walked back round to the main building, his other hand stuffed in his pocket.

The trio savoured what was left of their lunch, with a quick discussion about how weird that was, before the bell rang, signalling the next lessons. Sighing, they packed up the half eaten remains of their packed lunches, and trudged back to their classrooms.

• • •

The end of the school day brought with it relative freedom, and homework, but Danny had little interest in his work, instead favouring pulling out his phone while invisible on the top of the ops center.

The cityscape spread out across the horizon, and the view made Danny glad to have his newly gained powers. He briefly turned his hands and the paper and mobile in them visible to punch in the phone number, before slipping back into total invisibility and leaning back on the smooth metal of the roof with the phone to his ear.

"Hello?" Dash's voice came from the small speaker, and Danny's breath caught in his throat. He was really talking to his bully about dealing with a double life. This was mad.

"Um, hi," Danny said weakly, his voice barely above a ghostly whisper.

"Oh, Fenton, I didn't really expect you to call. What's up?" Dash seemed to be trying his best to be casual, but Danny could hear the slight shock and panic laced in his tone.

"I kinda wanted to know more about what it's like to balance being human and a supernatural being," Danny replied, "like, I'm pretty new to this whole stuff, and as much as Sam and Tucker may understand, they don't really get it, y'know, and I was wondering if you might be able to provide some sort of advice. So, yeah."

Shit, he was rambling.

Danny could practically hear the silent surprise from the other side of the line. "I don't know what to tell you, I guess keep your instincts and abilities in check so they don't leak into your daily life. I can't tell you how many times I nearly shifted in public because of my temper, but I've got it under control now. Other than that, try and make an effort to embrace your non-human half as a part of you, because self-loathing's never good."

Danny nodded, then realised that Dash couldn't see him. "Thanks."

"Hey, Fenton, wanna meet up? This discussion would work a lot better in person."

Danny was taken aback, under any other circumstances he would have assumed this was a trap to try and humiliate him, but Dash seemed oddly genuine right now, and Danny wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

They agreed on an out of the way location, one that Danny was only familiar with from Sam's family hiking trips around the forest, which she's refused to go on unless she could bring her friends with her, and Danny took off from the rooftop, soaring through the sky. He even did a loop along the way, which was admittedly less exciting than a rollercoaster due to the complete and utter lack of gravity affecting him, but fun nonetheless.

Danny landed on the forest floor, dry leaves crunching under his boots. His eyes scoured the trees, before he concluded that there weren't any witnesses, and reverted back to his human form.

A shadow came galumphing through the brush, and Danny's head snapped around to the noise, only to see Dash whacking a branch out of his face. "Ugh, why'd I choose to meet in the forest."

Danny stifled a laugh, and Dash shot him a sharp glare, pierced by an orange glow that cast harsh shadows across his face. This caused Danny to flinch, and at this Dash rescinded the glow, and apologised.

Dash sat down against a large oak and patted the ground next to him for Danny to sit down.

Danny looked very small as he settled himself on the sod, which made Dash think about the consequences of his bullying, and the very real possibility that he may have given this kid anxiety.

"I know we got off on the wrong foot, but I think I might like to not be enemies," Dash finally said, making Danny jump and spin around to face him in surprise.

"Huh?"

"Yeah, I just, I'm sorry for the way I treated you. I guess I was just trying to fit in, and it isn't right," Dash elaborated, which only served to make Danny stare. "It's hard to change when you cement yourself as a certain way, and it served as an outlet, y'know."

Danny was tempted to pinch himself to prove that this wasn't a dream.

"It's fine," he said at last, before a look of confusion and concern crossed his face in the blink of an eye. "Couldn't you talk to friends or family about it though?"

Dash shook his head. "Nah, my parents are both human, they wouldn't understand. That's kinda how changelings are - magical beings with human parents."

"Oh, yeah, my parents don't even know about me being a halfa," Danny empathised. Dash's eyes widened, but then his face fell in understanding.

This was odd, it felt like Dash had stripped away the mask he always wore, revealing an emotional boy in the place of the bully that had always been there before. No doubt Danny was forbidden of talking about this to anyone, as seemed to be the norm for the supernatural community, but it was interesting all the same.

"I get ya." Dash stared at the patchy sunlight above them. He didn't need to explain why or how he understood, a conversation passed silently between them, and the two boys felt a mutual understanding for each other's situation.

"So, how long have you been a halfa?" Dash asked, sitting more upright.

Danny thought for a moment. It felt like forever.

"Since last Tuesday, so about a week."

Dash gave a low whistle. "No wonder you're coming to me for advice."

"It scares me - not being human anymore," Danny admitted. He had a sneaking feeling that opening up to a bully like this would come back to bite him in the butt, but just having someone, anyone who might really understand him was something that he couldn't let slip away.

Dash hummed. "I don't quite get what you're feeling, but I always thought I was a monster or a freak or something when I was younger. I don't really fit in with the trolls and orcs and stuff, but I'm also not human, it's rough, but you just need to work on accepting yourself. If you accept yourself, it doesn't matter what anyone else says."

"Yeah, but how do I accept myself?" Danny pleaded.

Dash looked taken aback by the desperation in the smaller boy's voice, and a glance at his face revealed ice blue eyes brimming with unshed tears.

"I don't know. It takes a while. I'm sorry." Dash seemed to deflate, sinking down into the moss, then he got an idea. "You're a superhero!"

Danny blinked. "That's like what Tucker said."

Dash patted Danny on the back. "Then Tucker was right, but I have dibs on being the title character."

Danny couldn't help but chuckle despite the tears beginning to trickle from the corners of his eyes. "Nah, come on - I've got the lab accident backstory-" His voice cut off when he realised what he had said, and he bit his tongue in fear of sharing too much again.

Dash definitely heard him, but chose not to pursue the topic, pushing himself up from the ground. He shed his human appearance, teeth growing, eyes gaining the orange colour that had shown through his regular forget-me-not blue earlier, and skin becoming a stone-like blue. The unspoken message to embrace his non-human half was obvious, and Dash's tail flicked back and forth like a cat's in anticipation.

Danny shook off his shell shocked expression, and lifted off the ground with unearthly grace, summoning bright rings to change his appearance to the inverted colour version with green eyes that was his ghost form.

Dash tried to pick his jaw off of the ground. "You're a magical girl..."

Danny stood, floated blankly for a moment, before bursting into laughter, which Dash joined in with after he processed what had just escaped his mouth

"I can't believe you just said that," breathed Danny, flicking a harmless little ectoblast at Dash.

Dash blocked it with a blocky hand on reflex, then let go of the sharp breath he'd drawn at the sight of the glowing green attack. "You little," Dash grinned playfully. He lunged at the halfa, pinning him to the ground with incredible strength and speed.

Fear shot across Danny's features in that instant, and Dash released his grip on Danny, feeling rather guilty.

Danny glanced at Dash's retracting hands and fallen face, concern in the back of his eyes, fearing injury to the smaller boy. "Wait, I'm fine Dash. I was just surprised, that's all."

Dash looked deep in thought, and Danny took this opportunity to flip him over, pushing him into the ground before grinning at him. The changeling was shocked by the sudden display of strength, and threw Danny off him. It was clear that Dash outshone the halfa in the area of pure strength, but Danny definitely seemed nearly as durable as Dash himself.

This was a new experience, typically Dash had to drastically hold back in a fight, but Danny seemed unfazed as he stilled himself in midair and flipped the right way up, smiling like the sun. He flew down into the earth, and Dash was left on edge. Sharp eyes scanned the ground and trees, only for Dash to yelp when his legs were yanked out from under him and he was carried up in the air.

The halfa was cackling as he swooped back down in an aerial display, making Dash whoop like he was on a rollercoaster. Danny let go and went into a roll as he hit the ground, panting from the effort of lifting the other boy.

Dash hit the ground like a rock, leaving a small crater, and Danny winced, before dash leaped up and tackled Danny into a tree.

Danny's ribs stung with a bruise, but the pain quickly left (did he have a healing factor?) His entire being was brimming with energy, and he reflexively braced himself when he saw Dash charging at him.

Dash bounced off the translucent green shield that formed in front of Danny's outstretched arms, and Danny blinked in shock at the new power. "Well that's new. How'd I do that?"

"You mean you just learnt a new power?" Dash asked, holding his head after the rebound.

Danny nodded. "Yeah. I'm not sure what I'm doing, I'm kinda just learning how to do this stuff as I go."

Dash lit up. "Wanna practise it some more?" He became poised to charge again.

Danny nodded, and charged his hands with energy. He tried to replicate the feeling of the energy, but only managed to create a weak barrier, which cushioned the impact of Dash's shoulder into him, but broke pretty quickly. Danny turned intangible, falling through the tree as Dash was about to crash into him, landing ungracefully on his butt on the other side, legs still in the trunk.

"Dude, are you alright?" Dash reached a hand out to Danny, who grabbed the rough stone-like hand with own freezing cold hand and pulled his legs out from the tree, placing them firmly on the ground. "Yeah."

By the time the two of them tired, the sun was beginning to gain an orange tint, not unlike Dash's eyes, and Dash reverted back to his human form in preparation for the walk home.

"I can fly you home if you want," Danny offered, still floating a foot above the ground in his ghost form, nearly putting him at eye level with the larger boy.

"Nah, I'm good," Dash shrugged off the offer, before adding on a "thanks".

They went their separate ways, Danny arriving on his front steps in time for dinner, and Dash approaching his house at a time that he knew would get him chewed out by his mom for being late.

He opened the door, and winced at the eyes that latched onto him when he entered the dining room. He really should have agreed to be flown home, then he wouldn't have to deal with this.

"Don't just stand there, your dinner's getting cold," chided his mother, and he seated himself with a glass of water in front of a plateful of food.

Dash's father noted the rapid speed at which he was inhaling his food, and Dash was given a second serving of pie.

"What'd you do with your friend?" enquired his father, and Dash kept his eyes focused on his plate, finishing his mouthful.

"Just hung out, y'know," Dash replied, and his father rose an inquisitive eyebrow. "He was dealing with a lot of personal stuff."

"And I take it that's why you have mud all over your clothes?" Dash's mother chimed into the conversation.

"We played football to blow off steam." It was a lie, but a believable one. He may be many shitty things, but he wasn't a snitch, and he certainly wasn't about to expose anyone else.

Dash's parents sensed that there was more to this statement. "Oh, is it supernatural stuff?" probed his father, but Dash kept his lips sealed.

Dash's father sighed. "I know we're not the best with stuff like that, but I want you to know that we support you, no matter what."

"I know Dad," Dash conceded, placing the knife and fork on top of his empty plate. "I just-" Could he really put into words what it was like to feel that you didn't belong anywhere, that there was no one like you that you knew. It wouldn't be so bad if there were other changelings in Amity Park, but the majority of them seemed to live in supernatural hotspots in Europe, leaving Dash without any others of his kind.

Dash left, placing his plate in the dishwasher on his way through the kitchen, and settled to spend the rest of the evening in his bedroom.

He leaned back in his sturdy desk chair, something that his parents had got especially for him - a sign that they really did care, even if they didn't understand everything.

Today had been the first time in ages that he'd been able to let loose, and it served to remind him that he was an outcast of human society. He was just too physical, too brutish for normal standards, and being able to spend time with someone in a similar situation to him was a relief in a way he couldn't quite put his finger on - a chance to release his pent up energy.

He couldn't help but feel concern for Danny at the same time. The smaller boy was scared, even if he didn't want to show it, and Dash could only begin to imagine how it must feel to be a ghost in a family of ghost hunters - at least Dash's parents were relatively normal, and were aware of and accepting of his situation. He also hadn't been thrust into this situation in the same way Danny had, and he made a mental note to keep an eye on the halfa and his well being to protect him if need be, although he very much hoped it would never come to that.


	3. Chapter 3: Ghostly Meeting

The next week of school passed largely uneventfully.

Danny finished reading the Encyclopedia of Magical Beings and progressed to 'A Recent History of the Supernatural Community' by Isti Rockwell, something that Ida had insisted he read to better understand their rules and society. The book read more like a documentary on a fantasy series than an actual series of events, and Danny was left wondering if the book had embellished the events somewhat.

Dash and Danny kept their distance at school, but met up one more time on the Friday in the same spot as last time, which still held the crater from when Danny dropped the changeling into the ground from a flying start. Danny managed to perfect his shields, even working out how to change the shape and create them remotely, something that he was proud of.

Saturday brought with it another trip to the underground community, and Danny felt much more in his element this time. The crowds seemed less intimidating now that he felt that he belonged more than the last time, and he was able to identify most of the beings around him at a glance.

They'd seated themselves on a bench near the fountain, where Danny and Sam sketched studies of the inhabitants, while Tucker used his PDA. It felt familiar, like they did at the Nasty Burger until the school bullied had caught them doing it and ruthlessly tormented them for it.

Danny had briefly wanted to become an illustrator before setting his sights on space, and had kept it as a hobby, a good way to relieve stress.

Dash joined them towards the end of their sketching session, and was friendly, much to Sam and Tucker's surprise, and although they still held hostility towards him, they could see that he had no intentions of humiliating them again. Danny lend Dash his pencil and pad, and Dash managed a crude stick figure before giving up. He'd pressed too hard with the pencil, engraving a path through the next few pages, and Danny had no intentions of pushing his own hobbies on someone who clearly had no interest in them, despite being awed by Danny and Sam's skills.

Danny enquired about Paulina, to which Dash explained that she was half vila, a type of nymph noted for their feminine beauty, which was not much of a surprise to anyone and explained how she drew in others with her natural beauty.

The sun was beginning to set by the time Danny got home, and he saw the shadows of his parents watching TV in the sitting room, a clear sign that he was late for dinner, if his grumbling stomach wasn't enough.

"Hi Mom, hi Dad," he greeted as he entered the house, to which his dad gave an enthusiastic "Hey Dannyboy!"

"Can I have dinner now?" Danny asked, knowing the answer would be yes, but asking anyway out of politeness.

Maddie directed him towards the leftovers in the fridge, and Danny popped the box of spaghetti in the microwave for a couple of minutes. He ate what had been intended to be enough for two non-Jack Fenton servings in one go, before retreating to his room to continue reading, and tucked his sketchbook in the floor as well now that it contained drawings of supernatural beings.

• • •

Silence settled in the night, and Danny would have slept soundly if it weren't for the sudden chill that clawed its way up his throat. He awoke and gripped his neck as a tendril of mist spilled out of his mouth. Goosebumps appeared on his skin, and for the first time since the accident he felt cold, right down to his bones, to his core.

He pulled his door open, the creak softened by the carpet, only to be greeted by an empty landing. The stairs barely protested to his steps as he channeled some of his ghostly powers into floating slightly, and he scanned the kitchen, the chill permeating his body not properly going away.

An odd glow, not unlike the one Danny carried with his ghost form, bounced off the walls and ceiling, coming from the stairs leading to the basement lab, making the hair on the back of Danny's neck stand on end. He shifted into his ghost form, and he glided cautiously down towards the light. His palms tingled with energy as he prepared for an unknown foe, and as he reached the bottom of the staircase he was confronted with the sight of two bright green octopus-like creatures floating around the lab.

They seemed to be searching for or investigating something, lightly touching the countertops as they passed.

"Um, can I help you?" Danny asked quietly, his voice sounding a lot more timid than he had intended.

The octopi swiveled around to face him, red eyes glaring and teeth gritting. Seeing them front on like this, Danny couldn't help but think that they looked like a toddler's attempt at drawing an octopus.

Danny raised his hands in a placating motion, but this seemed to do nothing but aggravate the ghosts, who began to shriek at him before one charged at him.

He turned intangible reflexively as the arms swiped at him, then blasted the octopus away with an ectoblast. The octopus crashed into the wall, banging into a shelf and sending the vials and folders on there to the ground.

Danny winced at the sound of breaking glass, and was caught off guard by the second octopus, which grabbed him around the arm and yanked him into the floor.

The wind was knocked out of Danny's lungs, but oddly that didn't seem to affect him as much as the fact that he bashed his elbow. Of course - ghosts don't have to breathe. Danny tried not to think about it too hard as the octopi both sped towards him, and he threw up a rounded shield.

The bright green glow of the portal cast elongated shadows across the floor as Danny stood, and he used the opportunity of the octopi being stunned from bouncing off his shield to grab them by their arms and hurl them in the direction of the portal.

They flew into the green swirls, arms flailing behind them as they shrieked. Danny hit the button next to the portal to close it, and gave a sigh of relief. He glanced around him - the lab was a mess, glass everywhere, and he quickly swept around the room, cleaning up what he could. Unfortunately, he couldn't repair the dent in the wall or the shelf, but it was enough that his parents shouldn't be too shocked or distraught when they came downstairs.

Danny flew back up to his bedroom, passing through the floor, and landing on his bed with a flash of light. No sooner had he tucked himself into bed, he slipped away into unconsciousness.

• • •

Danny awoke from a hazy dream to the sound of knocking on his door, which startled him into momentary invisibility. The door opened, and he was thankfully visible as Maddie poked her head in. "You didn't hear anything last night, did you?"

Danny's heart began pounding, but he did his best not to react as he wiped the sleep from his eyes. "No, why?"

Maddie seemed satisfied by his answer, knowing that he was almost as much of a heavy sleeper as his father. "Your father and I forgot to lock up the portal overnight, and we think a ghost came through, maybe a few of them, it's hard to tell from such faint ectoplasmic readings. They seem to have been quite weak, but stay alert, you never know if one of the ectoplasmic malefactors will attack - the portal was closed when we went downstairs, so it's safe to assume that there's still at least one ghost in our world."

Danny gulped. "Okay."

His mother left him in peace, and he kicked himself for closing the portal, even if it did stop the ghosts from coming back. He fumbled for his phone, pulling up his conversations with Sam and Tucker, and shot them a short text explaining what had happened the night prior.

Sam voiced concern, while Tucker seemed to still be sleeping. None of the trio were morning people, and Danny was pretty sure that Sam had been woken up by her parents, if her short messages were anything to go by, indicating that she was too tired to formulate full sentences.

Danny sent a message, asking if he should tell his parents about everything, after Sam went on a disjointed rant about how his parents might be in danger of exposing the supernatural community if they actually got proof of ghosts, or managed to capture one. He placed the phone on the small chest of drawers next to his bed, and got up to stretch, his back cricking, reminding him that he really shouldn't sleep on his back. The rest of the conversation could wait until breakfast, and the smell of pancakes and bacon was teasing him downstairs. His father was cooking pancakes on one half of the stove, and a grease-filled pan of sizzling bacon on the other.

"Heya Danno!" Jack greeted with far too much energy for a weekend morning (how the rest of Danny's family were morning people was still a mystery and horror to the teen).

"Morning Dad," Danny greeted, helping himself from the stack of pancakes his father had just placed on the table in front of him. "Mom said ghosts came through the portal last night, is everything okay in the lab?"

"Yeah, just a bit of a dent and some broken flasks, that's all," Jack sat down, making the chair creek in the process, and placing a plate of bacon in the middle of the table. "It is odd. The ghost seems to have tidied up the glass. Why would a ghost do that? Does it have a cleaning obsession?"

Danny gulped down his mouthful, his throat feeling a little too dry for his liking. He poured himself a glass of orange juice. "Maybe it was being polite?" he suggested. He might as well try and sway his parents to the train of thought that ghosts can be nice, even if he didn't decide to tell them his secret.

Jack hummed. "Can ghosts be polite?" he mused, more to himself than anyone else, but Danny shrugged in response anyway.

Danny quickly ate his pancakes and the couple of rashes of bacon he could nab before his father devoured them, and escaped to his bedroom, where his phone still sat on the drawers. He took it in his hand and flipped it open, checking his messages. Sam was vehemently against telling his parents, at least without good reason, but Tucker, on the other hand, was in support of Danny telling his immediate family if he felt it would be the right thing to do, and a thought occurred to him that he could ask Dash as the tie-breaker. Unlike Sam, whose parents did not support her supernatural aspects, or Tucker, whose entire family were supernatural, Dash had supportive but completely human parents, not unlike Danny's own family.

He shot his former bully a quick explanation of the situation, and began playing a bubble popping game on his phone, only to be surprised when a reply came within a few minutes. 'u should. no fun 2 lie. p sure u want 2 anyway if u txt me.'

Danny thought about what Dash had said, and arranged an impromptu meeting of the quartet to discuss the matter, since Danny wasn't sure that he trusted his own judgement.

Dash and were the first to meet at their usual spot in the forest, but Danny insisted on waiting for Sam and Tucker before broaching the looming topic.

Sam and Tucker came out through the brush within a few minutes, Tucker somehow having gained a couple of scratched from his short journey. Danny stopped throwing his ectoblast back and forth between his hands, letting it dissipate.

Following an exchange of greetings, the four of them sat in a circle-like formation, that looked more like a line of three and then Danny across from them.

"I'm guessing you guys probably already know, but I kinda want to tell my parents about me being a halfa," Danny began.

"Then why do you want us to talk if you're already decided?" Sam questioned, crossing her arms. Despite her harsh facade, Danny could see that she was just worried about him.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Because I'm scared," Danny admitted. "I was kinda wondering if you guys could be backup, y'know, incase they respond badly, and to support my point."

"Of course man," Tucker half-shouted in support, leaning forward as though to stand up.

Dash and Sam nodded along. "Besides, even if it does go wrong, there are plenty of people in the community who can help you out," Dash chimed in.

Danny continued. "I was also wondering if I should tell them about the whole supernatural community, so they know to keep ghosts on the downlow."

There was quite a bit of 'um'ing and 'ah'ing, but it was eventually decided that it would be best to inform the Fentons of the whole picture.

Danny nearly went back on it during the walk back home, but held it together, if for no other reason than he was very much aware of his escort of friends, who had comforted him frequently throughout the journey.

Danny's shaking hand unlocked the door, and he saw his father in the sitting room. Jack looked over curiously, his bright blue eyes like gemstones. "What's up Danny?"

"I, um, I need to tell you guys something," Danny said, fiddling with the hair on the back of his neck.

His father had a puzzled look on his face and went to go and get Jazz and Maddie into the room, while Dash closed the door behind them.

The family gathered in the sitting room, and Danny felt slightly shaky as he stood in front of his parents and sister. "You might want to sit down for this."

Danny shuffled his feet, and Sam placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"I, remember when the portal started working?"

His family nodded, and Maddie opened her mouth to ask a question, but closed it again when Danny continued talking.

"I know it was stupid, but I went to look inside the portal, back when it didn't work, and um, I kinda accidently hit the on button - it turns out it was on the inside."

The sound of Jack Fenton's palm hitting against his face could be heard.

Maddie paled. "But, the portal creates a hole in dimensions through large amounts of energy, you- you weren't in it when it powered up were you?"

The room fell silent, and Danny's eyes began to water as he stared at the carpet. His mother clapped her hands to her mouth, reading his reaction.

"But Danno, you- you're alright, aren't you?" Jack stammered, in an unusually solemn tone for the typically exuberant man.

Danny took half a step back and took a deep breath. "I'm fine, but something happened to me, when the portal turned on. I'm not entirely human anymore."

A sharp gasp could be heard, although which parent it came from was hard to determine.

"Danny, are you a ghost?" Maddie asked slowly, standing up slightly from the couch.

Danny gave a sheepish smile and rubbed the back of his neck. "Not entirely. This is hard to explain, but I'm sort of half-ghost, half-human. I can prove it - I have a pulse and everything." He sped up as he spoke, sounding almost frantic towards the end and held out his wrist.

His mother took it tentatively in his now gloveless hand, and felt the slow, too slow, but strong pulse. Her expression softened, and she gave her son a hug, wrapping his small frame in her arms.

"How can you be a ghost too?" Jazz enquired, ever the sceptic.

Danny simply demonstrated after escaping the hug by plunging his arm into the wall, a nervous smile upon his face. "Like this." That shut Jazz up.

He rubbed the back of his neck with his now tangible hand. "I also, I have a ghostly form I can change into."

"Can we see?" Jack asked, barely able to hide his excitement.

Danny glanced to the window, and his friends got the message, with Sam rushing over to close the blinds.

A ring of light appeared at Danny's waist, shifting him into his ghost form. Snow white hair fell on his face as the ring finished its journey and vanished, and he blew it out of his radioactive green eyes. "Ta-da." He waved his gloved hands.

Danny surveyed the faces of his family, gliding forward slightly, and they shared mixed expressions of awe, fear and slight sadness. Jack began clapping, but stopped soon when he realised that only Dash was clapping along with him.

"This is insane," whispered Jazz, sinking into the armchair.

Danny shifted back to his human form in a flash of light, landing gently on the carpet. Maddie noticed that his feet took too long to sink into the carpet, as though her son had to remind himself of the presence of gravity. Maddie held his shoulders, and Jack soon crouched by her side. "I need you to know that we're fine with, this, and it doesn't matter whether you're a ghost, human or something in between - we still love you."

Danny grabbed both his parents in a hug, tears of relief pouring down his face. "Thank you."

He wiped his eyes. "I also have something else to tell you guys, something I found out about after the portal accident."

The Fenton parents exchanged a bewildered expression, but gave their son space to talk.

Danny paused. He hadn't really planned to explain the entire community to his parents. "Uh, can you guys help explain?" He directed the question to his trio of friends, who were standing or, in Dash's case, leaning up against the wall nearby.

Sam helped out. "There's an entire community of supernatural beings that Danny's now a part of, but only his immediate family and others in the community are allowed to know about it."

"What do you mean a 'community of supernatural beings'?" Maddie asked, the information taking a while to sink in.

"Like, werewolves and witches, and," Tucker looked to Dash for permission, "changelings."

"I was going to ask what Dash was doing here," said Jazz. "I take it you lot are all part of this community." The four friends nodded, and Dash changed forms to his more monstrous one to demonstrate.

Jack jumped slightly at Dash's appearance, but to his credit he didn't stare.

"And you're not allowed to tell anyone about any of this," Danny pleaded.

The rest of the Fenton family promised to keep it a secret, making Danny, and the other supernatural occupants of the room, sigh in relief.

"Thanks," Danny said shyly. "I have books on supernatural beings, and the history of the community, if you want to read them - I hid them in my room. And we can visit the underground community hub if you want to see it first-hand."

Jazz jumped at the opportunity to read. "Yes please." She was already halfway up the stairs before Danny explained that she'd need his help to get them.

He phased all his books out, placing them across the carpet, and Jazz took an immediate interest in a few of them. She left his room with the Encyclopedia of Magical Beings, which Danny recommended to her as a good read, and Danny crammed his books into the limited free space on his bookshelves.

The acceptance of his family brought a sense of freedom to Danny, and he spent the rest of the day explaining the ins and out of the past couple of weeks to his parents, and prompted them to lay off going public with any evidence of ghosts for the sake of the supernatural community.

Sam and Tucker helped with explaining the rules they had to follow, and Dash did his part explaining how the supernatural community dealt with its members having normal, human family.

By the time Danny's friends left, everyone was exhausted except for Jazz, who seemed to have gained an incredible amount of energy from her interest in this new community, interrogating Danny about the book and its contents.

"It says that human-ghost hybrids are called halfas, does that mean that that's what we should refer to you as?"

Danny just shrugged. "It's easier than calling me half-ghost, half-human."

Jazz snorted slightly at this, and resumed her reading.

Danny parents briefly asked him if he wanted them to work out any way to make him human again, but dropped the subject and profusely apologised when he explained that he was happy this way. Jack commented that 'what teenage boy wouldn't want superpowers', which prompted Danny to mention the comparison Tucker and Dash had made of Danny being like a superhero.

Danny fell asleep with ease that night, comforted by the revelations of the day. His dreams were a foggy journey through space, littered with glowing crystals, leading him to his home. He felt far to comfy to want to get up, but his alarm on his phone had other plans, forcing him out of sleep as the sunlight streamed in through the curtains.

Jazz drove him to school, taking the time in a closed environment before school during the drive to ask him about what it was like being a halfa, until Danny told her to shut up when they reached the school.

Lessons went on as usual, that was until lunch.

"What do you mean you changed the menu?" Tucker whined. "I can't live without meat!"

Sam gave him an incredulous look. "Even wolves don't have to eat meat all the time."

"It would probably have been better to just campaign for a vegan option," Danny said, shuffling into the cafeteria.

Sam huffed. "It's about making a statement."

"You made a statement alright," grumbled Tucker, as he glanced at the tofu stew being offered.

In all honesty Danny couldn't tell it apart from the school's usual meat slop, and at least it smelt better than usual, but Tucker was just being melodramatic.

Tucker prodded the rice and stew with his spoon, unwilling to actually eat, until Sam snapped at him. "Just eat it, you wimp."

Danny had to force down a laugh at Tucker's offended expression, and the werewolf had a look of disgust as he put a spoonful of the food into his mouth, which morphed into one of surprise as he started chewing.

"Huh? It's actually okay?" Danny wished he could have had a camera to capture Tucker's dumbfounded expression.

Sam had an expression so smug she didn't even have to speak to convey her condescension, not with that shit-eating grin at her meat-eating friend's expense.

The moment was broken by the same icy feeling crawling up Danny's throat as at the weekend, and he jumped into high alert as the mist plumed out of his mouth. "Uh, guys, I think we have a situation."

"Yeah dude, you just breathed out cold. What does that even mean?" Tucker spoke around the spoon that was almost at his mouth.

Danny glanced around. "I think it means a ghost is near. The same thing happened with those octopuses."

"What now?" Sam hissed across the table, and Danny ducked over the table as a junior walked past.

"I should find it, before anyone notices it," Danny whispered back.

"We," Tucker corrected, "we'll find it. You can't do this alone."

Danny conceded, and the trio snuck out of the cafeteria after hastily scoffing down as much food as they could. The ghost was nowhere to be found until they went by the kitchens, and another burst of cold came from Danny's mouth.

He turned the three of them invisible and intangible, making Tucker shudder at the sudden freezing sensation that swept over him. As they passed through the door, they saw a translucent figure drifting around the kitchen.

The green skinned, plump woman turned to face them, catching a glimpse of the trio through the corner of her eye. "Hello, children. Can you help me? Today's lunch is meatloaf, but I don't see the meatloaf. Did someone change the menu?"

The trio simultaneously gulped, exchanging nervous glances. They all knew better than to anger a ghost. The menu was likely her obsession, and they'd have to try and talk her into a reasonable state.

"Uh, it's just a one day thing, a trial run. The meatloaf isn't suitable for vegetarians, so the cafeteria was trialing additional dishes to serve alongside the usual," Sam explained, a slight quiver in her voice.

The ghost cocked a quizzical eyebrow. "Then where is the meatloaf?"

"Not here today?" Sam said, with it coming out more like a question than the confrontational statement she'd intended it to be.

The ghost narrowed her red eyes, anger sparking in her glowing irises. "I thought the other dishes would be alongside the usual…"

"After the trial run, to gauge how much people like it and raise awareness," Sam's voice got progressively quieter as she went on.

Danny hastily picked up, "and then the menu will be back to normal."

The ghost wiped her hands on her apron, and inspected each of their faces with scepticism. "And is the alternative food good?" She spat out the word 'alternative' like it was disgusting.

The trio all nodded.

"I'll be back tomorrow to check that the menu's back to how it should be," said the ghost, hair sparking with flames as she pointed angrily at the trio. "The menu's been the same for over fifty years, and it's not changing anytime soon. Do you understand?" She flew up through the ceiling, and Danny, Sam and Tucker were left gaping.

"Who's going to tell her that the trial's supposed to last a week?" Tucker chirped, probably feeling happy from the relief of the ghost leaving.

Danny and Sam just looked at him with something like a mix of concern and a glare.

"Do you think we can convince the school to end the trial early?" Danny asked.

Sam shook her head. "They probably already ordered in the supplies for it, there's no way they could change the menu back so suddenly." She gripped her bangs slightly as she held her face in her hands. "This is bad."

Danny just stood there surprised by her reaction. "Can't we just fight her if she does anything? Like the octopuses?"

"Didn't you just shove the octopuses into the portal?" Tucker questioned. "How would you deal with a ghost here?"

That brought Danny's train of thought to a screeching halt. How would he deal with a ghost at school? "Uhhh…I don't know."

They escaped the kitchens, thankfully unnoticed by the staff, sneaking back around into the hallways just as the bell rang for their next lessons, forcing them their separate ways as they each had different classes.

The question of how Danny could deal with the ghost weighed on his mind throughout the rest of the day, which didn't go unnoticed by Mr Lancer, who asked him if he was alright at the end of the lesson.

The class was thinning drastically, and Danny waited until the last few stragglers left from their last lesson of the day to go home or to clubs before he spoke.

"There's was a ghost in the cafeteria kitchens today, and she said she'd be coming back tomorrow if the menu isn't back to normal," Danny spoke quickly, and ended abruptly, resulting in a couple of seconds of silence while his teacher processed what he'd just said.

"A ghost?" whispered Mr Lancer. "That's not good. I'll speak to management and see if I can do anything, but if worst comes to worst, we'll probably need your help to deal with it."

Danny nodded, and Mr Lancer continued.

"What time did this take place today? I need to check the CCTV footage so I know what we're looking out for."

"During lunch. She looks like an old lunch lady, but she has green skin and she's kinda see through," Danny replied.

Mr Lancer gave a small sigh of relief. "Translucent?"

Danny nodded in the affirmative.

"That's good, it's not a fully corporeal ghost," Mr Lancer elaborated.

Danny spoke as he packed away his books. "Mr Lancer, have you seen any dangerous ghosts in the future I should know about?" He tried his best to keep his tone casual, but in all honesty, he was scared - scared of being left unprepared for some greater threat.

Mr Lancer's glassy eyes scanned over the papers on his desk. "I can't say whether you'll encounter them in this timestream, but there are dangerous ghosts in existence. I see only possible futures, and the amount of futures where you defeat those ghosts far outweighs those where you don't, and the percentage is improving with time. I wouldn't worry yourself about the future, Daniel - it's not set in stone."

• • •

"Hey, Mom, Dad, you wouldn't happen to have anything that could contain ghosts or get them back to the Ghost Zone?" Danny enquired over dinner. "Because we kind of have an issue with a ghost at school…"

"A ghost!?" Jack jumped up in excitement. "Your mother and I can help. I've been waiting for a chance to fight a real life ghost-"

"Please can you not come to the school," Danny cut in, then tried to do damage control to lessen the blow. "We kinda want to keep a low profile with this ghost."

Jack deflated with disappointment and Maddie patted him on the back comfortingly.

"Well, there's the Fenton Thermos, but it doesn't work yet…" He trailed off, then ran down to the basement, leaving his half eaten plate of food in his haste. Mr Fenton soon came bounding back up the stairs, a silver and green thermos clasped in his hand. He held it out to Danny, launching into a long explanation of what it was and how it was supposed to work. "It's supposed to use the ghost's natural ability to shapeshift and take a non-physical form to get it into the thermos, using ectoplasmic energy as a catalyst and suck them up, then the walls are lined with ecto-electrical currents embedded in the metal to keep the ghost inside the device - that bit was your mother's idea. But it doesn't do anything besides spark a little right now. We just can't figure it out."

"Thanks Dad," Danny said as he took the thermos in his hands, feeling the small engravings in the smooth metal with his fingertips. The thermos had clear capture and release buttons, marked in green plastic,and Danny pressed the capture button gently, as though expecting it to explode (which wouldn't be unrealistic with his parents' inventions).

The thermos, as described by his father, gave a weak spark, with no other activity.

Then Danny got an idea: it ran on ectoenergy - he was a halfa, he literally had ectoenergy in his veins.

"Can I try something?" Danny asked, stepping back from his empty plate, and aiming the thermos away from the table.

He concentrated his energy into the palms of his hands cupping the thermos, much like he did with his balls of energy, but this time the thermos sucked up the energy like a sponge and lit up a bright green in its ridges, filling with ectoplasmic energy.

A beam of blue light erupted from the thermos as Danny held down the capture button, engulfing the area in front of him in its harsh glow. Danny released the button, and looked over to his parents, grinning. "I think it works."

• • •

The trio arrived at school in the morning with a plan of sorts: confront the ghost away from the public eye, fight said ghost, capture the ghost in the thermos and release it into the Ghost Zone after the school day. The details were patchy at best, but it was something.

By the time lunch came around, Danny was halfway to pulling the thermos out of his bag, ready to react should the ghost attack.

Mr Lancer escorted them to the cafeteria, where the school was serving a vegetable dish with noodles, aided by an assortment of fragrant herbs and spices that put the old menu to shame. Apparently when the staff were given something new to try out they put in far more effort than when they went about the monotonous grind of making the same thing over and over.

Right on cue, Danny felt the cold feeling that he now dubbed his ghost sense climbing up his throat, and he and the three with him went to check in the kitchen.

It was chaos. Pots and pans were lifting into the air as the irate ghost gave the group that had now entered a flaming glare. "I said it should be back to normal!" she screamed, hurling the pots in the direction of the quartet. Danny simply reacted by turning the group intangible. He didn't exactly fear exposure as he recognised the sole member of the kitchen staff in the area was someone he recognised as one of his sketching subjects in the underground community. The cook flinched at the sound of metal clanging against the wall behind the group confronting the ghost, covering his large ears with his grey-tinted, wrinkled hands. Danny knew from the time he spent sketching that this man also had a thin tail with a harpoon-like point at the end, being an ukobach, that was no doubt hidden under his clothing.

The ghost stared in shock at the group, in particular Danny, who was at the front. "How-?" she croaked, losing some of her rageful posture in favour of shock.

Danny stepped forward (probably a stupid move, but it was now or never). "Um, hi."

The ghost inspected him with narrowed eyes.

"I needed to tell you that the trial lasts for a week, so please calm down." He made a placating gesture with his hands, with the palms facing the ground.

"Calm down!?" the lunch lady roared, hair catching alight in a rage of flames. Blood vessels bulged in her face, and she looked on the verge of a meltdown.

"Yes?" Danny was largely losing confidence under the shadow of her fuming face.

The lunch lady hurled a rack of plates at Danny using telekinesis (a reminder to him that he should really learn that skill), and he turned intangible to avoid them. The dishes shattered against the cupboards with a painful clashing sound.

"You can't change the menu! The menu is sacred!" the ghost barely looked human anymore, her face contorting into disgusting shapes and expressions.

A jet of fire hit the ghost in the face, and she whipped around, barely fazed by the attack to see the cook wiping his smoking mouth, small embers playing in front of his face.

"Freaks!" shrieked the ghost, just in time to get punched in her unburnt cheek by Danny, who had used the distraction to change into his ghost form.

"No one here's a freak," Danny spat at the ghost, radioactive green eyes blazing dangerously. "You obviously have a lot of issues, lady."

The ghost was dumbfounded, unable to move in her surprise, before she shook herself out of it. "How dare you!" she growled, making every piece of food in the room fly to her, clustering around her to form a sort of battle armour.

Unfortunately, her battle armour was of little use against another ghost. Danny just phased his way through the food and hit her in the abdomen with an ectoblast before uncapping the thermos and sucking her into the blue vortex of light.

He recapped the thermos once the blue swirls had stopped, and shifted back into his human form with rings of light.

Sam and Tucker were grinning at his victory, and Mr Lancer had a, was that a proud expression? "You did well, Danny," the teacher said. "We can handle tidying up this mess, the three of you should enjoy the remaining ten minutes of your lunch break. There should be three servings by the hatch for you, eat it quickly."

The trio of teens left, still elated from the fight, even if Danny did hold a guilty expression as he glanced at the damage from the ghost hurling the contents of the kitchen around.

"I suppose you've seen some great prophecy about that boy, eh William?" said the cook as he picked up and armful of pans from the floor.

Mr Lancer chortled. "No prophecy, but in virtually every future I've seen he goes on to do great things. He just needs the right direction."

The cook hummed in thought, placing the pans on the work surface. "He seems like a good kid, make sure you keep him on the right track. Lord knows what others less pure of heart would do with his powers."

"Terrible things." Mr Lancer shuddered.

The cook chose not to question this - seeing the future was both a blessing and a curse, one that he would never want for himself.

• • •

"Hey, back from school. Got the ghost." Danny called out to his parents as he hopped down the stairs to the basement. He pulled out the thermos from his school bag and held it out.

His mom and dad's expressions morphed between surprise, excitement and pride.

"That's amazing!" exclaimed Jack, throwing down the project he had been working on in favour of facing his son with a glowing grin splitting his face.

Danny blushed, and shuffled towards the portal. "I'll let her go back to the Ghost Zone."

"Can we see the ghost first?" asked his mother, pulling her goggles onto her forehead.

"I, I don't know. Just, keep your distance. She was really angry earlier - I don't want you to get hurt." Danny held the thermos a little closer to his chest.

"I understand," Maddie sighed, and backed up against the wall opposite the portal.

Danny hit the button to open the portal doors, uncovering the green swirls, the very presence of which set the hairs on the back of the neck of anyone nearby in end, radiating the cold energy that only ectoplasm could give off.

He uncapped the thermos and shifted into his ghost half, much to his parents' amazement and shock.

Floating in front of the portal, thermos pointed into the ectoplasmic swirls, Danny pressed the release button. The blue light came again, much like when it sucked up the ghost, only this time the form of an overweight lady was forcefully ejected from the entrance.

She stopped to try and reorient herself in the new environment, then span around to glare at the halfa and his parents.

"How dare you!?"

Her hair was ablaze once again, and powered up ectoblasts in his fists. The lunch lady continued to shriek.

"Not only did you change the menu, but you also trapped me in a thermos. What kind of sour irony is that!?"

"Lady, maybe you shouldn't have attacked us. Maybe it was time for some change after fifty years, and maybe you need to move on. The past is the past, you can't stop people from moving on with their lives!" Danny shouted back, at his wits end with this ghost.

She froze, taken aback. "You WHAT!?" And her anger was back, and she was flying full force at Danny, claw-like nails bared on the ends of her fingers.

Danny shot her once, hitting her back, and then a second time, right in the chest, stunning her and sending her through the green swirls of the portal. He flew to the button to close the doors with such speed that he slammed into the wall.

The metal doors slid shut, and a dull thud of the lunch lady hitting the other side of the barrier could be heard.

Danny let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding, and peeled his hand off the stone wall. "Are you guys alright?" He turned around sheepishly to face his parents.

His mother was gaping slightly, while his father seemed ecstatic.

"Yep. That was amazing Danno!"

Danny become suddenly even more self-conscious, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

He tried to make an escape from the lab, shuffling along the wall towards the stairs, only for his father to call out to him. "Hey, if you ever want to practice using your powers, we can set up the lab for it. We could have targets there and there, and-" He cut himself off, ceasing his animated gestures at his son's uneasy expression.

"That's nice Dad, but I think I'd rather practice with my friends, y'know." Danny couldn't meet his parents' eyes, now beginning to inch up the first step on the staircase.

"We just want you to know that we really do support you Danny, ghost or not, and the last thing we want to do is make you feel like you can't be yourself around us," Maddie said, stepping a little in front of her husband.

"Halfa," Danny corrected, "not a ghost. I'm still alive." He took another step before looking over his shoulder. "Thanks though, it means a lot to me."

• • •

It was only the next day when Danny decided to take his parents up on their offer. Other than the fact that Dash was stuck at home studying (apparently he hadn't done well in his last math exam, so his parents had got him a tutor), Danny reasoned that it would be a good idea to spend time around his parents to try and get them used to him being a halfa, and to an extent, so he could get used to using his powers around them.

His dad set up cardboard cutouts of cartoonish ghosts around the room, decorating the walls, with target designs on them. It was cheesy, but endearing nonetheless, and the grin on Jack's face as he showed them to Danny warmed the halfa to the core.

That afternoon was spent shooting at the targets, most of which Danny managed to hit at least close to the bullseye. Before long all the targets were incinerated, and Danny wondered what other powers he could practice with his parents.

"Hey, this is going to sound weird, but please can you shoot ectoguns at me?" he asked, coming down to about a foot off the ground to talk to his mom and dad.

"Are you sure?" Maddie asked cautiously, clearly worried about hurting her son.

Danny nodded. "I've been working on ectoplasmic shields, and I want to see how it works with ectoblasts."

The Fenton duo managed to make guns appear from who-knows-where, and Danny wouldn't have been too surprised to find out that they were using magic. With a nervous glance to each other and Danny, they held them up, with the barrels pointed into the air where Danny was. "Ready?"

Danny gave a thumbs up, and focused ectoenergy into his hands, lighting them up with a green glow, and a volley of shots danced through the air, mostly coming from Jack, who didn't seem to have any control over the gun, firing wildly.

A solid green shield appeared in front of Danny, and the ectoplasmic shots created ripples in its surface. The first few seconds consisted of the shots ricocheting around the room, but Danny was soon able to channel the energy from the shots into the shield, like droplets of rain hitting a pond. His eyebrows knitted together in concentration as he fought to control the flow of energy, and the shield seemed to grow in size with each shot as it absorbed the ectoplasm.

The shots died down, and Danny let his shield dissipate in a swirl, smiling from ear to ear. "That was awesome!" he cried in joy at his newly learned ability.

"What else can you do?" Jack asked, practically bouncing with excitement, like a happy puppy.

Danny nearly forgot how weird he was for a moment in the shared moment of fun and accomplishment. "I can fly, turn invisible, intangible, and you've seen my ectoblasts and shield. Apparently halfas can have a lot more powers, but I'm still learning." He counted on his fingers as he listed the powers, then rubbed his neck at his last sentence.

Maddie looked deep in thought. It unnerved her a bit that her son was floating in front of her, looking largely inhuman, but the little Danny-like habits comforted her in a way that she couldn't describe - reassuring her that regardless of how he looked or what abilities he may have now, he was still Danny, and right now he needed to be supported in this new area.

"That's really impressive. And you learned all that in just a couple of weeks," she complemented, and Danny flushed a green shade with embarrassment.

"Yeah, I had help from my friends though."

"Regardless, we're proud of you, Danny."

Danny landed in front of them, still fidgeting with the hair on the back of his neck, and Maddie felt a loving smile tug at the corners of her mouth.

"What other abilities do you think you can learn?" Jack enquired. No doubt he was planning to make an action figure of his son to go alongside his Spiderman and Ironman figures on his bedroom cabinet.

"Uhh, the Encyclopedia says I could have shape shifting, elemental powers, telekinesis and telepathy. I'm not sure if my core's developed enough for elemental powers, but I'm guessing it might be cold or something - like my ghost sense, oh yeah, that's one of my powers, I can sense when a ghost's nearby. I really want to learn telekinesis - I saw the lunch lady use it, and it looked really cool," Danny rambled happily, and only stopped when Maddie drew his attention.

She glanced at the clock behind them, which read 6:20. "We practice that later, but I think it's time for dinner, don't you?"

The loud grumbles from both Danny and his father's stomachs said as much, and Danny shifted back into his human form and joined his parents in the kitchen/dining room.

Maddie inspected the contents of the fridge, which resulted in her getting attacked by mutant undead sausages, which she quickly disposed of by swiping at them off her and into the bin. Their angry cries could be heard through the metal lid, but the family decided to ignore it and order pizza that night instead.

"Danny, can you go and ask your sister what kind of pizza she wants?" Maddie requested, pulling out the takeaway menu and circling the choices that she'd already been told in blue pen, layering over the multitude of other pen marks on the piece of paper, a reminder to get a new menu at some point.

Danny bounced up the stairs, taking them two at a time at a supernatural speed in defiance of gravity.

"Hey, Jazz, we're having pizza for dinner. What d'you want?" He knocked on the neatly decorated door of his sister's room. The sound of shuffling papers and typing could be heard inside, before she trudged over to the door.

"Can I have a margarita?" she said.

"Boring, but okay," Danny commented, then yelled downstairs to his parents. "Margarita!"

Jazz winced slightly at the noise, hating the fact that she lived with such a loud family at times. "Like you're one to talk, Mr 'I'll-just-have-pasta'," she quipped back.

"Yeah, well at least I don't just drink water," Danny countered, crossing his arms, a playful smirk crossing his face.

Jazz rolled her eyes, and changed the topic. "I haven't seen you all afternoon. Where were you?"

"Training in the lab with Mom and Dad," he shrugged. "We were working on target practice and ecto-shields."

Jazz smiled softly. "It's good that you feel comfortable about using your powers. I don't want you to have to suppress a part of you - that would be detrimental for emotional development and accepting yourself."

Danny zoned out from the psychobabble. "I get it, thanks sis."

The pizzas arrived, and their dad called for them to come down with his booming voice, which managed to carry through walls and doors like they weren't there.

Danny sprinted down the stairs towards the smell of pizza, and nearly crashed into Jazz as they went down the stairs, but phased through her on reflex.

"What the hell Danny!?" she shuddered at the sensation, and Danny just shrugged.

"At least I didn't hit you."

Jazz ruffled his hair, much to his annoyance, and seated herself with their parents in the dining room, where the pizza boxes were strewn across the table in each of their places. Jack had already started to dig into his meat feast, and the others opened their boxes and moved a few slices onto their plates.

Swallowing a mouthful of pizza, Jack spoke, as though announcing something great. "We've been invited to a college reunion at the weekend. The letter said that children were welcome. Do you two want to come along? We'll have a road trip to Wisconsin, and you can meet some of our old college pals."

Danny practically choked on his slice of pizza, dropping a chilli onto his plate.

Jazz recalled that she'd barely spent any time with her brother, and an idea formed in her mind. "That sounds like a great family bonding opportunity," she said, and Danny shot her a pleading glare that blatantly said 'please don't do this'.

"It's decided then!" Jack declared, wilfully ignorant of the fact that Danny seemed to be just about ready to bang his head against the table. "You two can finally meet your godfather. Mads and I worked with him to build the first prototype of the ghost portal."

"What's he called?" Danny asked, a little more interested at the mention of ghosts.

"Vlad Masters."

"Wait, _the Vlad Masters_," Jazz interrupted. "As in, Affluence Magazine's 'Billionaire of the Year?'"

"That's the one. We were best friends, roommates, lab partners - we did everything together.

But there was an accident with the proto-portal - he was hospitalised with a horrible case of ecto-acne. It devastated him, we haven't talked since. But after all these years, I think he might have forgiven me."

Danny glanced to Jazz. "An accident with a portal?" He asked his parents.

Jack nodded. "Yep, he got a faceful of unpurified ectoplasm - must've stung." He winced in sympathy for his friend. "But he seems to be doing well now."

Danny tried to sleep that night, but his mind was overrun with thoughts that Vlad might be another halfa, like him. He ran over scenarios, what Vlad Masters might be like, and he found himself becoming more nervous the more he thought about it. Eventually splashing water in his face after a trip to the bathroom, Danny attempted to cast aside those thoughts until the morning, with them being left to fester at the back of his mind as he drifted off.

In the drive to school the next day Danny voiced his thoughts to Jazz as he watched the blocks pass by. "Do you think Vlad Masters might be a halfa too?"

Jazz sighed. "It's possible, but I wouldn't get your hopes up. We don't know how someone becomes a halfa really, so just try to keep a realistic view, okay?"

Danny nodded solemnly, but still had a hopeful, nervous feeling in his chest that he couldn't get rid of.


	4. Chapter 4: Reunion

Danny was taking a flight, something that had become a great way for him to relax before bed, as the sun dipped behind the concrete blocks and lit the clouds above Danny in its orange light. He swooped through the clock face atop the mall building, marveling invisibly at the assortment of cogs and mechanisms that kept the clock ticking at all hours of the day that he would otherwise not be privy to.

Unfortunately, his peaceful flight was interrupted by a freezing sensation that caused a swirl of condensed air to materialise in front of his face. Danny shivered and span around apprehensively, awaiting a confrontation with a hostile ghost. He spotted a trio of glowing green vultures flying in and out of houses, accompanied by the screams of the unsuspecting folks in their homes. Danny rocketed towards the birds, and if he wasn't mistaken they were heading in the direction of Fenton Works. Maybe they just wanted to get to the Ghost Zone or something - perhaps Danny could just help them out without a fight.

"Can I help you?" Danny asked, perching on a rooftop next to the vultures and becoming translucent enough for them to see him but not enough for any humans to spot him without trying very hard.

"Finally, someone we can talk to," said one of the vultures, his fez tipping on his head like it was about to fall off. "You wouldn't happen to know the whereabouts of any halfas in the area, would you?"

Danny's face twisted into a quizzical expression laced with suspicion and fear. "Why do you want to find a halfa?"

"We have no nefarious intentions," stated another one of the vultures placatingly, "we merely wish to confirm the existence of another halfa to see if the rumours are true."

"Oh," Danny said blankly, "yeah, I'm a halfa."

"See, I told you we'd find him." The third vulture elbowed his companions before turning to Danny. "And what's your name?"

"Danny," Danny whispered, not wanting to risk anyone overhearing this conversation.

"Fenton?" the second vulture enquired, to which Danny nodded.

"How'd you know?"

The vulture waved him off. "We were given some information by our employer before coming here."

"Your employer?" Concern leaked into Danny's voice.

The first vulture whacked the second over the head. "You weren't meant to mention him, you moron." He focused back on Danny. "Nothing to worry about. We'll be taking our leave now."

Danny stayed crouched there for a moment longer as the vulture took off, then flew after them as they went in the opposite direction of Fenton Works.

"Don't you want to go to the Ghost Zone?"

The vultures stopped to ponder his question before the first, fez-wearing vulture replied, "that would be quicker. I don't fancy another three day long journey. Thank you young man, lead the way."

Danny led them back to Fenton Works, and through the ghost portal, with a quick explanation to his parents. He tried his best to sleep that night, but found himself reading at midnight in an attempt to quell his racing mind, filled with questions about their employer and why they needed to confirm the existence of a halfa, and of course, how they knew his surname.

Danny recounted the encounter with the vulture ghosts to Dash during their sparring session on Friday, which reminded him: "I'll be going to my parent's college reunion tomorrow - and apparently one of my parents' old college friends got hit by an active portal when they were in college, and Jazz says not to get my hopes up, but what if he's a halfa?"

Dash paused, forgetting that he was halfway through trying to punch at Danny's small Captain America-style shield. "I don't know, man. I'd have to agree with your sister - no one really knows how a human becomes a halfa, so for all we know it could just be wishful thinking. But it's still weird that those vulture ghosts' employer knew your name." It occurred to him that they were still sparring, and he went for some quick jabs at the shield, which barely affected Danny. "I know what it's like to want to have someone like you, so just, I guess, don't get carried away with your expectations or anything - it'll just hurt if he turns out not to be a halfa."

Danny nodded with a hint of disappointment lining the creases of his face, and Dash added on to his previous statement.

"But hey, it's not bad to hope."

The young halfa flew home after blowing off steam in his sparring session, and dropped into bed, changing back to human with a flash of light. He just about remembered to kick off his shoes before he lay there and refused to move until his mom came into the room to check on him.

"Danny, can you get changed into your pyjamas?" She lightly shook his shoulder, and smiled when he groaned and tried to wave her off.

"Come on Danny, you're not going to sleep in your day clothes are you?" Maddie put on a light hint of annoyance in her tone, which worked wonders for getting her son to perk up.

"Huh?" he said groggily, and pushed himself up into a sitting position. "Oh, right, sorry Mom." Danny looked down at his creased t-shirt and jeans, and rubbed the back of his neck.

His mother moved back over to the doorway, hand on the door handle. "Normally I'd have to remind you to go to sleep at a reasonable time, but I think you've got that covered. Just make sure to be ready to go by nine tomorrow morning. Good night, sweety."

"'Night Mom," said Danny as she closed his bedroom door with a soft click.

He threw on his pyjamas, washed and decided that he might as well read the last chapter or two of 'A Recent History of the Supernatural Community', pulling the thick hardback book from his bookshelf after a look at his alarm clock, which read 10:37 pm.

That night involved dreams of flying, desperately trying to catch up with a shadowy figure who always seemed to be just out of range to see clearly, and Danny awoke only when he went intangible to avoid a tree in his dream and ended up falling through the floor in real life.

"Oof." Danny landed on the dining table, knocking the air out of his lungs and catapulting Jazz's breakfast onto the floor.

"Jesus Christ, Danny!" Jazz exclaimed as the bowl smashed against the tiles, and Danny groaned as he lifted his head from the table.

"Sorry 'bout that," he said as he realised what had just happened. "Want me to clean up?" Danny slid off the table, checking its surface for damage, which he'd thankfully been too light to cause.

Jazz scowled and nodded, backing away when the clumps of pottery and oatmeal gained a green glow and floated into the bin. "Woah, how did you do that?" she asked Danny, eyes going from annoyed to amazed and wide as saucers in a matter of moments.

"Magic." Danny grinned at her from his perch on the edge of the table, and she remembered why she found her younger brother irritating, but was willing to let it slide since he was using his powers for good.

"What happened!?" Maddie burst into the room, clad in her pyjamas and a dressing gown, only to take in what seemed to be a relatively normal scene.

Danny rubbed the back of his neck. "I kinda fell through the ceiling...Oh, and we're one bowl down now."

Maddie blinked and look up at the intact ceiling, complete with its hanging light. This whole ghost powers thing was definitely taking some getting used to, especially when her son randomly passed through solid objects.

Jazz was collecting a new bowl from the cupboard, and it didn't take a genius to work out that the previous bowl was probably broken from Danny landing on it.

The Fenton family were all ready by 7:50, at which time Jack was bouncing by the door like a puppy ready to go for a walk.

Danny came out the door with another large book under his arm ('Wonders of Constellations' by Professor O. Ryan), and seated himself in the back of the RV, in one of the massive chair, decidedly built to suit their father rather than an average size person.

The engine of the RV jumped to life, and Jack Fenton's reckless driving led to them being flung out of the driveway and onto the suburban road with an uncomfortable amount of speed for the suburban area they were in.

The drive passed with loud country music, and the Fenton siblings indulging in their books (Jazz having borrowed 'A Recent History of the Supernatural Community' from her younger brother upon hearing that he'd finished it). Eventually Danny gave up trying to keep the book steady in his hands, and instead opted to levitate it in front of his face, which earned him a glance from his family.

"Seriously, I know halfas can use telekinesis, but since when did you know how to do it?" Jazz asked, placing her book down on her lap

Danny placed his bookmark in between the pages of his book and let it drift down to land in his hand. "I've been practicing it for the past few days. Sam helped quite a bit at first - she explained how she did magic, and so I used that to try and move stuff with ectoenergy. I basically surround the object with my energy, and I can control its movement."

Jazz nodded along, a slight twinge of jealousy spiking through her veins before she remembered the horrible experience he had to go through to get his powers, and it subsided a bit.

"How much can you move with telekinesis?" Jack enquired, his interest in the paranormal sparking behind his eyes.

"Uhh, I'm not sure," Danny said, "just light stuff right now, like books and stuff - but I know the Lunch Lady was able to move entire racks of plates and pans with telekinesis, so I have a ways to go."

Then Jazz got an idea of how to get him to stretch his abilities. "I'll bet you can't lift that bazooka," she challenged, pointing to a particularly large, metal Fenton bazooka at the back of the RV in a rack.

Danny cocked an eyebrow at her questioningly, and his eyes and hand glowed a vibrant green as the bazooka shakily rose up out of its supports. It dropped back into place after a few seconds, leaving Danny breathing heavily. He gave his sister a shit-eating grin, eyes no longer glowing. "Oh yeah?"

"Well done, little brother." She sat back in her seat. "My challenge was actually an incentive to get you to push your limits with your abilities, since you like to prove me wrong."

Danny huffed and crossed his arms. "Sure…" he drawled, lifting his book back into the air in front of his face.

"So, what's the underground community like?" Jazz attempted to start a conversation.

"Nice, I guess," Danny shrugged, clearly wanting to read his book rather than engaging in any more conversation with his sister. He sighed when he glanced around and noticed that his entire family seemed to be interested.

"Most of the community seem to either live in or spend time in the underground community hub. It's really cool - there are all sorts of supernatural beings, and there entire place is filled with glowing crystals-" He glanced at his book. "-which apparently change their appearance in coordination with the constellations above them. I was going to ask if you wanted to visit the underground market at the weekend, but y'know, we've got this, so maybe next week?"

He became increasingly animated as he talked about the community. Despite being a definitive part of it, it still felt like something out of a fantasy novel, and sometimes Danny had to pinch himself to remind himself that this was all real.

"How do you get to the market?" Maddie asked, looking in the mirror at her son.

Danny shrugged. "There are a few entrances that I've seen, but the one I've used is a tunnel that opens up from an alley when you touch the middle of a rune or something on the wall that only magical beings can see."

"Like Diagon Alley?" Jazz enquired.

"Huh? Yeah, I guess," Danny blinked in response. "That was kinda my first thought, but Sam insists that the real life supernatural community is nothing like in Harry Potter."

"Does Sam have a wand?" Jack Fenton looked like he was holding in a million questions, and Danny was glad that he had suppressed the urge to blurt them all out in one of his usual word vomits.

Danny shook his head, then remembered that his father had to look out the window (although with Mr Fenton's driving it was doubtful whether he actually paid any mind to his surroundings). "Nope. And witches and wizards are completely different: wizards are more like DnD wizards, like spells and flashy stuff, and witches are more aligned with herbology and charms. And then there are druids, but they're a whole different can of worms - they draw their magic from links to ancient magical beings, and I know that seers usually draw their magic from the spirit that oversees time."

"That's so cool!" Jack exclaimed. "Can anyone do magic?"

Danny approached his response carefully, well aware of how excited his father was. "Um, no, sorry, it's genetic I think." Jack sank in disappointment, and Danny quickly added on: "but you can still get wards and charmed items from the market."

This seemed to appease Jack enough for the spark to return to his eyes.

The rest of the journey involved an animated discussion about the supernatural community and Danny's status as a halfa, and the sun began to set as they reached their destination - the orange glow casting deep shadows into every crack and hole in the walls of the towering mansion in front of them.

"Remember: no talking about the supernatural community or my powers when we're in public," Danny gave a quick reminder to his family before any of them opened the doors, mostly being cautious of his dad's enthusiasm about the supernatural and magical.

The Fenton family climbed the short flight of stone stairs up to the grand hardwood doors, decorated with metal finishings and rounded handles. Jack's massive hand rapped against the panels of the dark door, sending echoes throughout the castle and the surrounding area.

A man dressed in an immaculate black suit, with a red napkin in the breast pocket for decoration opened the door within moments, as though he had been waiting right behind the door. He had a slight smile on his face, but Danny could of sworn that there was a look of hopefulness hidden in his expression.

"Heya V-man!" Jack greeted joyfully, and the suited man went to take a step back as Jack offered a hug.

"Hello Jack, Maddie." He had a silky smooth voice, with what sounded like he was trying to force a refined British accent. "And you two must be Jasmine and Daniel." Vlad looked past the Fenton parents to the children standing on the front steps.

"Um, it's Danny," the Fenton boy corrected, trying to be somewhat polite, and Vlad nodded in response.

"Of course my boy." Vlad stepped aside, allowing the family to enter his home. "The party does not start until tomorrow, but I would love it if you were to stay the night in my humble abode."

"I don't know, I don't want to tread on your toes, and we have a really cool RV," Jack trailed off slightly.

Jazz gave a faux sneeze in an attempt to mask her statement of "stay here", to which Danny replied with a sarcastic "smooth" which he drew out for emphasis.

Vlad raised an eyebrow at the sibling interaction before returning his focus to Jack. "You know, it's said that the original owner of this castle, the Wisconsin Dairy King, may still roam its halls as a ghost."

Jack's interest was sparked. "If you say so, I'll go and get our bags."

"I should go and make sure that he doesn't try and carry everything in one go. We don't want a repeat of the airport incident." Maddie turned to follow Jack. "I'll be right back."

Vlad grimaced. "Do I want to know how many people were injured in 'the airport incident'?"

Danny suppressed his gut feeling of wrongness about this man and being stuck alone with him, instead opting to answer his question. "Just three, but we're not allowed into the nearest airport to Amity Park anymore."

Vlad raised an eyebrow and glanced at the door where the Fenton parents were, a look of concern dancing across his features. "Well that's a lot less bad than I expected. I take it Jack's driving is as abysmal as ever too?" His tone was light, but a hint of distaste could be heard in the back of his voice.

Jazz nodded, looking uncomfortable at the mere mention of her dad's driving.

As if on cue, Jack and Maddie reentered the hallway, and Vlad directed them to put their bags down, leaving the housekeepers to move them to their respective rooms.

Danny's breath fogged in front of his eyes and he nudged Jazz, who gave him a concerned look as he scanned his surroundings for ghosts. A wrinkled old man with a light greenish tinge to his sun-spotted skin lifted a particularly heavy bag, and it looked almost as though his arms might fall off with the strain. Danny could have also sworn he could see the shapes of ectoplasmic birds dipping in through the ceiling.

"Oh dear, I didn't think it was that ghostly cold. Should I put on the heating?" asked Vlad, glancing inquisitively at the condensed air that was dissipating in front of Danny's face.

Danny gawked at his choice of words, and quickly rearranged his features into a more neutral expression. "It's fine, it's not too cold."

Vlad noticed Maddie and Jack again, tearing his focus away from the small boy with the icy breath. "Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?" he offered, and the Fenton family followed him into the dining hall. Danny and Jazz trailed behind a bit, whispering to each other.

"Ghostly cold," Danny mouthed to Jazz, who nodded but kept her composure, unlike Danny who was on the verge of whisper shouting.

"It might not mean anything Danny. What do you think triggered the...you know what?"

"A ghost," Danny deadpanned, his raised eyebrows conveying the rest of his theory about Vlad to Jazz.

Jazz crossed her arms. "It could just be the Dairy King."

Danny would have retorted if it weren't for the fact that they had now reached the dining room, which was somewhat similar to the one at Sam's house, but far more ornate and fancy, and with a larger table, and well, a larger and more of everything - especially candles, this man seemed to really like atmospheric candles.

The group seated themselves at the table, and Danny couldn't help the anxiety that swelled inside him. Vlad had to be a halfa, there was no other way to explain what had happened earlier.

Partway through the meal Jack decided it would be a great time for a heart to heart with his old college pal, and he lowered the rib that he'd been raising up to his mouth. "Um, Vlad, this is going to sound really out of the blue, but I'm sorry about the accident with the proto portal. I've been thinking about it, and it was my fault and I don't know how to make it up to you."

Jack seemed to shrink into his chair, while Vlad's mouth was agape, as though his jaw were dislocated. Tears pricked at his eyes. His entire false persona of politeness and restraint faded, and the family in front of him were privy to a broken man who wept tears openly, before wiping his puffy eyes and speaking in a strained and slightly cracking voice.

"Thank you. In all honesty I wasn't expecting an apology, and I'm equally sorry for isolating myself afterwards. I can only imagine the strain it must have placed on the two of you to not know how my condition was for the months in the hospital."

Vlad sat up straighter in his chair, regaining some of his earlier composure.

"For now, I would like to simply request that you and your children enjoy your stay here, and that we can catch up after all this time. After all, a lot can change in twenty years."

The hairs on the back of Danny's neck prickled at the surge of energy that came from the family friend and his core thrummed along with it, picking up the warmth that came his way. Could Danny sense emotions? Or was it something else?

The meal came to an end, however Danny had barely been able to make his way through the food on his plate, his nerves eating away at his appetite as the time went on.

Vlad guided them through the winding hallways and staircases up to their bedrooms, Maddie and Jack sharing a particularly large double bed, and Danny and Jazz each having their own rooms with single beds surrounded by curtains.

The figure of the grey haired billionaire stood in Danny's doorway as he unzipped his suitcase, giving a small cough to announce that he was still there. He looked uncertain as he walked over the threshold into the room, like he was just about ready to turn tail and leave.

"I would like to ask you about the earlier breath of condensed air you displayed earlier," Vlad enquired uncertainly.

"Uh, ghosts?" Danny replied, hoping that Vlad would read in between the lines.

"Indeed, my housekeeper, Mr Goole, is rather old, one might even say he was spectral in nature. And of course this house is home to a few vultures."

Danny bit his tongue. "Did the portal accident do anything to you other than ecto-acne?"

"I suppose it's time to let the proverbial cat out of the bag." Vlad closed the bedroom door behind him. "May I ask how your school lunches are?"

Danny gaped. "How'd you know about that?"

Vlad chuckled. "Word spreads quickly through the grapevine, and in your case, in not only one community, but two."

It was about time Danny took the plunge. "Are you, are you a halfa?"

Vlad nodded, smiling broadly from ear to ear and Danny's eyes widened and filled with a layer of tears.

"And I take it that you are too, if word of you introduction to the community wasn't enough to tell me that."

The tears leaked down Danny's cheeks. "Ha, I knew it! And Jazz said I was wrong!"

When silence greeted the younger halfa, he looked up to see the stunned expression on Vlad's face as he backed away. "Your family know?!" he exclaimed. "And they accepted you?"

Danny nodded. "Of course they did - they're my family. And…" Danny looked down at his shoes awkwardly. "And if you told them, I'm sure they'd accept you too."

Vlad was about ready to break down and sob. "Thank you, Danny."

The pair of halfas launched into a conversation about their experiences with being such, with Vlad pulling up a chair and Danny sitting on the edge of his bed on the crisp sheets.

"I built my own portal to the Ghost Zone after I gained sufficient funds to do so, building on your parent's design and incorporating magical elements to better bridge the gap," Vlad explained, and Danny listened intently. "I am now somewhat of an established figure among ghosts and employ many of them in my home and work. Of course, I am a ghost myself, as are you. Have you visited the Ghost Zone yet, my boy?"

Danny shook his head and spoke slowly, trying hard to voice his feelings. "I don't really think I'm a ghost, since I'm alive and all, and I was kinda busy with school and the community, so I haven't actually seen it." Danny rubbed the back of his neck, not wanting to admit that he was also afraid of entering the Ghost Zone, the green swirls of the portal bringing back an unpleasant memory that crawled under his skin with cold electricity.

Vlad tsked. "Remind me to introduce you to the Ghost Zone, halfas are half ghost after all, it's only natural for you to at least see the place."

"What's the Ghost Zone like?" Danny asked uncertainly, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end at the mere thought of the Zone.

Vlad hummed. "It's rather unorganised at the best of times. There are floating islands and doors in a green expanse. Groups of ghosts have formed communities on some of the larger islands, but most ghosts seem to be solitary or exist in pairs."

"There are communities of ghosts?" Danny sat upright with interest.

"Of course. Beings will band together regardless of the environment or specifics, whether it be for survival or companionship." Vlad waved his hand dismissively and pushed himself up off the chair. "Now, I would say that it is probably time for bed, wouldn't you say so?"

Danny looked like he was about to argued, then gave a large yawn that he was only just able to cover his mouth for.

"'Night," he said to Vlad as the older halfa closed the door.

"Good night Little Badger."

The sun drifted lazily onto Danny's face, impeded by the curtains that surrounded the bed. The sun, however, was not what woke him, rather the thumping of footsteps like a hoard of baby elephants.

Danny groaned and hauled himself out of bed, checking the time on his phone. He joined his parents in the hallway (Jack had realised that he'd been running in the wrong direction down the corridor and corrected his path to the dining room).

They emerged in the hall, where an oddly disheveled Vlad Masters greeted them. Bags hung under his eyes, and he wore more casual wear - just a shirt and formal trousers - which compared to his custom tailored suit was relatively normal. He guided the group into the dining room, and an unspoken apprehension passed between all members of the group, with the exception of Jazz, who entered the room shortly after them.

Vlad took his seat at the head of the table, and cleared his throat. "I would like to tell your family something rather significant about myself, but first I should ask whether you want me to tell you before or after breakfast."

No one spoke in response to this, and Vlad opted to get it over and done with.

"Well then. I suppose you remember the accident with the portal that gave me ecto-acne twenty years ago?" He directed the question at the Fenton parents.

Meanwhile Jazz's mind was racing at 100 mph, and her face betrayed her surprise and anticipation for the conformation of Danny's theory. She glanced over to her brother and noticed that he was nowhere near as excited as she would have expected, but of course Danny must already know.

Vlad watched as the cogs turned in both Maddie and Jack's heads until Maddie uttered, "like Danny's accident…"

The silver-haired man nodded. "The accident made me into a halfa. I was afraid to tell you for a long time because I was sure that you would despise the very thing that I had become, however, after a conversation with Danny, here, I have decided it best to inform you of my condition, as it were."

"Told you so," Danny muttered as he elbowed Jazz in the ribs. Jazz grimaced at her brother and said nothing. She never was good at being wrong, and it happened so infrequently she had never really confronted the feelings it dredged up.

Vlad chose to ignore this little sibling interaction. "I could show you my ghost form if you wish, but it would have to be in a more private part of the mansion - my personal library."

The Fentons followed him through the winding halls, with Jazz mumbling a little "and this doesn't seem at all like a horror film", until they reached a pair of tall doors, not unlike the ones at the entrance to the mansion. Doors opened up into a towering room that seemed to stretch on for further than the eye could see with a maze of bookshelves stacked higher than any human could reasonably reach, even with a ladder. Jazz's mouth dropped open at the display, and Danny fought to keep his composure so he could mock Jazz for it later.

Vlad walked over to the middle of the room and the doors closed behind them as the last of the family entered the room. He looked over the group apprehensively, noticing Danny's little thumbs up, and let black rings spring forth from his waist - sucking in the light around them as the polar opposite of Danny's own bright rings.

Jack sucked in a sharp breath as the rings split and travelled over the man in front of them, changing his appearance as it went, skin going from a tan to a bluish shade, like the frozen skin of a corpse. He lifted slightly off the ground as the rings finished their journey, leaving a white and red cape flowing behind him in a non-existent wind behind his pristine white suit with a black belt, gloves and boots. His pure red eyes scanned over their reactions, taking in the shocked faces of the Fenton family, even Danny.

Vlad landed in front of his guests, trying his best to appear non-threatening in his slow descent.

Jack was the one to break the silence with a question: "Why do you look so different in your ghost form when Danno just has a palette swap? Is it because of the impure ectoplasm from the portal?"

Vlad shook his head. "No, nothing of the sort. Ghosts are able to change their appearance, and I figured it would be best to have a ghostly appearance that is significantly different to my human one for safety reasons, and to be able to fit in better among ghosts - the majority of ghosts are only vaguely human-like in their appearance. Although, I am curious to see young Danny's ghost form now."

Danny blushed slightly under the attention that was now turned to him, and summoned the white rings to change him into his ghost form, bleaching his hair white in the opposite of Vlad's, which had turned his silver hair to coal black horn-like points.

"Is that what you were wearing when you became a halfa?" Vlad asked, cocking a thick eyebrow at the jumpsuit Danny had on.

"Uh, yeah," Danny responded, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Why'd you choose to look like a stereotypical vampire of all things though?" Jazz piped up from the back of the group, and Vlad scowled, not bothering to dignify that question with an answer.

"Moving on," he said, shifting back into his human form and gracefully landing on the thick carpet. "Would you like to have breakfast now?"

The rest of the morning was spent catching up, and Danny and Jazz chose to leave the room when the adults started excitedly talking about their college days. Vlad's smile seemed a lot more genuine than the forced one he had greeted them with when they first arrived, and Danny couldn't help but wonder whether it was because of the talk of nostalgic times or the fact that he had found another halfa. Danny was certainly happy to find someone like him, so he could only imagine the joy one would get from finding a fellow halfa after 20 years of waiting.

Vlad agreed to visit the Fenton's regularly, travelling between Wisconsin and Amity Park via his ghost portal, which he had hidden underground, with a secret passage leading to his lab, in order to spend time with the family and tutor Danny in the use of his ghostly powers and the Ghost Zone.

The party was just about as boring as you could expect from a group of middle-aged adults, and both Danny and Jazz hid themselves in the library until the party had finished - Jazz enjoying a book on the behaviourist approach of psychology and its applications in institutions, and Danny starting to read a book on the rise and fall of Pariah Dark, which Jazz insisted was not in English or any other language she could identify, before getting distracted and going off to say hi to the ghostly residents of the mansion.

By the time the party had ended, Danny had managed to befriend the majority of the ghosts in the castle, including the Dairy King, who he found to be a little odd, but otherwise good company. At some point in their conversation Danny had ended up being lectured about the different types of cheese with an exuberant amount of passion, and he just sat there and nodded along while the ghost rambled delightedly. It was sort of nice, even if he didn't have any idea about cheese. Honestly, the Dairy King's enthuthiasm somewhat reminded Danny of his dad, and he made a mental note to introduce the two of them at some time.

"Danny! Jazz!" Jack Fenton's booming voice broke up the conversation, and Danny bid the Dairy King a farewell, before flying through the walls and floors towards the source of the sound.

"Hey Dad, what's up?" Danny floated into the library just as Jazz came out from her hiding place in between the bookshelves.

Jack jumped at the sudden appearance of his children, but smiled broadly. "Your mother says that we should be leaving soon so we can get you home for school tomorrow. Are you two ready to go?"

"Yeah, I just need to go to the bathroom first." Danny dropped the the floor in his human form.

It wasn't long before the family said goodbye to their host, and made their way to the Fenton RV with the moon hanging over them with the emerging stars. Danny marveled at how much more visible the stars were out in the countryside than in the city of Amity Park, head twisting to the skies as he walked.

"Thanks for hosting this. Feel free to visit us at any time," Jack said as he released Vlad from one of his bone crushing hugs.

The businessman stumbled a bit and brushed the creases out of his suit. "Thank you." He gave a warm smile that accented the dark creases under each of his eyes.

• • •

"Danny? Are you awake?" A familiar voice poked through the fog of Danny's sleep, and he merely rolled over as much as the seat belt would permit.

Large hands lifted him from his reclined seat in the RV, the orange glow of the street lights shining through his eyelids. "Huh," he mumbled as he was carried from the vehicle in large strides, cracking open his eyes to see his father in his bright orange jumpsuit guiding him into the house.

The Fenton Works sign was unilluminated at this time of night, and a few wispy clouds drifted across the star-speckled sky.

Danny absentmindedly noted that the stars were far dimmer here than he had seen them earlier in the night, and the first few amber streaks dimmed them further than light pollution alone.

Jack continued to carry Danny's mostly limp body up the stairs, following Jazz, who had managed to wake up enough to walk into their home on her own, and placed Danny on his bed. It was too late (or early?) for Jack to concern himself with trying to get Danny to get changed into more suitable nightwear, and he whispered a "good night, I love you" before leaving Danny to rest.

Danny slipped back into the warm cloud of sleep, ignoring the early rays that gradually lightened the walls around him.

A trilling alarm ripped Danny begrudgingly from his bed, and he stumbled across the room to where his phone was yelling at him to wake up. He clicked the alarm off and flipped the phone shut. His aching spine protested against him having slept in the RV for the majority of the previous night, an ache that was reduced only slightly by stretching and having a cold shower.

Now somewhat more awake than before, Danny trudged down the staircase to the dining room, where he hardly noticed the lack of his dad in the room as he focused on grabbing his cereal.

"Cookie Crisp? Just how tired are you?" Jazz questioned, looking up from the book she was reading in front of her glass of orange juice.

Danny hummed through his mouthful of sugary cereal and swallowed before speaking. "I don't sleep well in a seat."

Jazz rolled her eyes. "I'm pretty sure you can sleep anywhere, but okay. You know it would be better to have a cereal that releases energy slowly throughout the day, like shredded wheat."

"Yeah, well, this is better for waking me up." Danny pointedly ignored his sister's advice and poured some more Cookie Crisp into his bowl.

"Good morning." Maddie walked over and sat down with her own bowl of cereal, donning her own slight bags under her eyes from the previous night of poor rest. "Looking forward to school?"

"Utterly thrilled," Danny deadpanned and shoveled another spoonful of cereal into his mouth.

Danny had a new spring in his step with the discovery of another halfa, and he felt like shouting with joy to his friends when he met them in the corridor, but restrained himself, instead telling them that he had great news to tell them later.

Sam and Tucker cocked their eyebrows, but didn't pursue it further, sensing the implicit message that it was something they couldn't talk about in public.

While they didn't pursue it, they did shoot occasional glances at the halfa, who seemed torn between excitement and exhaustion, and had instead simply resorted to doodling on a piece of paper he had torn out from his work book. Danny tried to recall the appearances of the ghosts he had met the last night, all the while struggling to listen to Mr Lancer's lecture.

Mr Lancer noticed this doodling, but decided to turn a blind eye to it instead of calling out the boy. It wasn't exactly a secret that Danny sometimes had trouble concentrating on work, and listening while doodling was far better than completely zoning out.

Lunch time eventually came and Danny dragged his friends off to an empty area of the courtyard by the teacher's car park. Trees stood guard around them while Danny explained in hushed tones what had happened over the weekend.

"Okay, so you guys know about the college reunion my parents took us to?"

Sam and Tucker nodded in confirmation, egging him on to continue his announcement.

"Well we got there, and it turns out that Vlad's," Danny lowered his voice to whisper the last words, "a halfa."

"Shut up man!" Tucker exclaimed, and Sam shot him a deadly look for possibly drawing attention to them.

Danny glanced around to check for eavesdroppers before continuing.

"Yeah, and he has a load of ghosts as servants at his mansion. He said he'd visit us, and tutor me with my powers. Oh, and he wants to introduce me to the Ghost Zone."

"Woah, that's awesome!" Sam joined in. "Do you think we could meet him too?"

Danny nodded enthusiastically. "'Course. I can text you when he comes around."

"Sounds cool." Tucker gave Danny a fist bump.

"Anyway, what do you guys think about the new Doomed update?" Sam forcefully changed the topic.

The trio settled down in the cafeteria to continue their discussion. Dash gave them a brief questioning glance when they entered halfway through the breaktime, but remained in his conversation with the A-listers.

Danny fumbled with his keys to unlock the front door after school. He could see the silhouettes of people inside the living room, as he pushed the door open.

"Hello Danno, guess who came to visit," Jack greeted, almost jumping up from the couch when he saw Danny entering the house.

Vlad was sitting on the remaining third of the couch next to Jack, while Maddie sat in an armchair opposite the two of them. The billionaire was wearing one of his typical suits as he sipped from a small cup of tea. A teapot with floral designs that Danny was not accustomed to seeing outside of the high up kitchen cupboard that housed the fine china that they never used sat on the coffee table between the seats.

"Good afternoon, Little Badger," said Vlad between sips of his tea. "We were just talking about you."

"Hi." Danny shut the door behind him and hesitantly asked. "What were you saying about me?"

Vlad hummed. "We were just discussing your halfa education. I was enquiring how to go about your tutoring. What would be convenient for you?"

"Uhh," Danny stalled, thinking about his answer. "Maybe after school or at weekends?"

"Of course." Vlad put down his empty teacup on his saucer. "Would you like to begin today, or on another date?"

"Um, I'll just put my bag in my room, then can we please start the tutoring today?" Danny edged towards the staircase, and hopped up the steps upon Vlad's nod. He stopped halfway up the steps and hesitantly spoke. "Oh, right, can my friends come around to meet you? Like, they're also part of the community."

Vlad's face twisted through a range of emotions, settling on a forced smile. "Why, of course. It would be good to meet the friend's who've introduced you to the supernatural world so far."

After dumping his bag by his bed, Danny pulled his phone out of his pocket and shot Sam and Tucker a quick text telling them that Vlad was there and they could visit. He then sprinted back down to the living room, where Vlad gestured him towards the remaining armchair around the coffee table.

Danny sat down, feeling the fabric of his jeans as a nervous habit.

"I would like to enquire to the extent of your current powers and knowledge before we start any training or tutoring," Vlad questioned.

Danny paused, unsure of what Vlad wanted to hear. "Well I can fly, turn invisible, intangible, make balls of ectoplasmic energy, shoot energy rays, make ectoplasmic shields and use telekinesis. And I've been to the underground market, and I've read the Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures, and A Recent History of the Supernatural Community."

"Hmm, good progress, especially considering considering how short of a time you've learned this in," Vlad praised, and Jack beamed at Vlad's words, while Danny rubbed the back of his neck.

The doorbell rang, interrupting the conversation.

"That'll be Sam and Tuck." Danny sprang up from his seat and answered the door. True to his word, Sam and Tucker were anxiously waiting outside the door.

"Hey dude, you good?" Tucker asked, to which Danny nodded and stepped aside to let them inside.

The newcomers' eyes darted around the room, settling on the older halfa seated next to Jack Fenton, with a warm, but stiff, smile to the duo. "Nice to meet you. You must be Danny's friends." Vlad extended a hand that Tucker happily shook, while Sam stood back and eyed the man skeptically from slightly further back.

Danny stepped closer, his anxious excitement nearly palpable, and Vlad answered the unspoken question.

"It would be best to begin your tutoring in the lab. Your friends may come along as long as they stay out of danger."

Vlad turned to Sam and Tucker. "I appreciate your presence and all you have done to aid Danny so far. If you don't mind me asking, what magical beings are you two. I'm afraid that I do not know how safe it would be for you to come into contact with ghost powers, as there are some magical beings that do not react well to those sorts of stuff."

"I'm a witch, Tucker's a werewolf. We're fine to be around Danny," Sam said, not leaving any room for argument.

"Very well then." Vlad was led by an exuberant Danny down to the basement, with Sam, Tucker, Maddie and Jack all staying nearer the entrance of the lab than the middle of the lab where the halfas were.

Danny and Vlad both shifted into their ghost forms, and the same wisp of cold air that always accompanied the presence of another ghost swirled from Danny's mouth.

Vlad raised an eyebrow at Danny's ghost sense. "I've been meaning to ask what that is."

"Uh, it's sort of my ghost sense. It happens whenever there's a ghost nearby," Danny answered, suddenly self conscious.

"Wait, don't you have that power?" Maddie enquired.

Vlad shook his head. "Alas, I don't. If I had to guess, I would say that I have a different elemental core to Danny, and as such, different core powers."

"Huh? What kind of core do you have?" Danny asked.

Vlad let flames burst up in the palm of his hand. "I have a fire core."

"Woah," Danny gaped at the small display of elemental power.

"Tell me, what core type do you have?" Vlad let the flames in his hand dissipate.

"Uhh, I don't really know. I guess my ghost sense feels cold, but what would that be?" Danny's face scrunched in confusion.

"If I had to make an informed guess, I would say that you have an ice core." Vlad rubbed his bearded chin. "In which case we will likely need the help of the Far Frozen to train your elemental powers."

"In the Ghost Zone?" Danny anxiously glanced at the portal's blast doors.

"Well of course," Vlad said nonchalantly.

"Can we go with you to the Ghost Zone?" Jack asked, bouncing up and down excitedly.

Vlad looked rather uncomfortable, looking over the cloak covering his shoulders to the portal. "I suppose, but I would recommend creating a vehicle to travel through the Zone as you can't fly. The Ghost Zone isn't exactly safe for humans."

"That's easy, we can just take the Specter Speeder!" Jack exclaimed. "Mads, did you hear that? We can go to the Ghost Zone!"

Maddie nodded with a broad smile, and placed a hand on her husband's arm. "I know, it'll be incredible."

While listening to the others chat, Danny processed Vlad's appearance. The man no longer had hair that turned up in horn-like spikes, but instead a loose ponytail with a few strands out of the tie. The ponytail appeared to move like a flame, small sparks and embers coming off of it and fading into nothingness within a metre of Vlad. He had scrapped his flowing cape in exchange for a red cloth that covered his shoulders and wrapped around the front like a very short poncho. Overall, he looked far more friendly, despite his pure red eyes, fanged teeth and pointed ears remaining the same as they had the last time Danny had seen Vlad's ghost half.

"Hey, Vlad, why'd you change your ghost form?" Danny enquired.

Vlad seemed slightly taken aback, and frowned slightly at the implication that he had a reason for it.

"It was about time for a change of wardrobe, nothing more."

"And it has nothing to do with Jazz calling you a vampire last time?"

Vlad scowled and pushed down a pink glow in his cheeks. "Nothing at all."

Danny snickered, and Vlad's expression softened, losing most of its defensive edge.

The rest of that session was spent working out future lessons, and it was decided that Danny would be entering the Ghost Zone after he had perfected telepathy and ectoenergy manipulation, despite his reluctance to go anywhere near the green swirls.

Vlad had also lent Danny some books on the history and cultures of the Ghost Zone, insisting that they were required reading for their journey. The books had a slight green glow to them, but were otherwise normal enough.

"Farewell" Vlad said as the portal doors opened, and the Fentons and Tucker responded with enthusiastic goodbyes. The vampiric halfa glided through the green swirls which rippled out from his form passing through them like jelly being poked.

Sam, Tucker and Danny sat in the latter's bedroom, surrounded by model rockets and glow-in-the-dark stars that adorned the ceiling in constellation patterns.

"He seems like a cool dude," said Tucker, sitting to the side on Danny's desk chair. "Kinda weird, but cool."

Sam glared holes at the carpet. "Something about him seems off to me."

Danny opened his mouth to argue in Vlad's defense, but Sam cut him off before he could start.

"He gives me similar vibes to the manipulative snobs at my parents' parties - all fake smiles and hidden intentions. I know it means a lot to you to find another halfa, but just be careful."

"Sam, he is a billionaire. What did you expect?" Tucker interjected, resulting in Sam turning her glare to him.

"I know, but something still seems off about him."

Danny sighed, and leaned forward on the edge of his bouncy mattress. "Just give him a chance, alright," he pleaded.

Sam caved. "Alright, alright." She raised her hands placatingly.


	5. Chapter 5: Questions of Mor(t)ality

"We've managed to sort out a schedule for my tutoring with Vlad," Danny said excitedly as he flew circles around Dash, who was doing his best to keep up and maybe try and get the excited halfa to stop. "He'll be coming over on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, and on Saturday he'll be there most the day. So we can still meet up here on the other days."

Dash finally managed to grab Danny's ghostly tail in his large, blocky hands. "Aha!" he exclaimed, before Danny just phased through his grip in wisps.

Danny floated more or less stationary, save for his ghostly tail, which flicked much like a cat's. He rubbed the back of his neck. "I was rambling again, wasn't I?" The halfa suddenly became really self conscious.

Dash waved off his concerns, despite thinking that Danny was rambling, despite his good reasons for being excited. "It's fine man, you weren't too much. I think it's great that you're happy."

Danny grinned and struck up a fighting pose with his upper body, keeping his ghostly tail. "Thanks Dash."

The two of them continued to let off steam, and Dash couldn't help but notice that Danny seemed to be much more comfortable in his ghostliness in an almost imperceptible manner. Perhaps it was the presence of his ghostly tail, which he usually fought off, favouring his more human legs, or maybe it was the general aura of happiness coming from the boy. Either way, Dash was genuinely pleased for him, if somewhat sad and disappointed at the fact that he still didn't have anyone quite like him in his life. It felt almost like Dash was losing some sort of special connection with the smaller boy, one brought on by shared experiences of isolation that was now dissipating as Vlad's influence in Danny's life grew.

A melancholy note hung over Dash's evening, and he wondered if he should, perhaps, look into networks of other changelings. It had been proposed to him previously, but it hadn't been until recently that he realised just how much he needed to be able to talk to those like him.

He pulled up the web browser on his computer, hunching over the blocky monitor as he typed a URL directly into the search bar. It slowly loaded, and he cursed his slow internet connection as the website slowly came into view.

A banner adorned the top of the website, with blocky text reading 'ICG forums'. Dash clicked to sign up, and runes twisted across the monitor, the runes' magical influence causing his eyes to flash amber momentarily before he was directed to input a username and password.

Upon choosing the username 'FootballBear', Dash was given access to the message boards and felt a rush of exhilaration. It had taken him years, but Danny getting a mentor was apparently the push he needed to join a community that would hopefully help him accept himself.

• • •

Danny's first official tutoring session with Vlad took place on the Wednesday, as the Monday had been more dedicated to working out how they would go forward, and establishing baselines.

Vlad had been impressed by the progress the younger halfa had made with his powers in such a short time, but noted how he was sloppy, vastly unpractised in comparison to the veteran halfa, in the use of his abilities, but he was somewhat skilled nonetheless. If Vlad was being honest, he was both excited and scared to see just how powerful Danny would become in time, with both the raw power of his core, which Vlad could feel the energy from whenever Danny shifted into his ghost form, and his aptitude with learning to control and use his powers.

Danny and Vlad sat cross legged on yoga mats in the lab, despite Danny's protests, and Vlad led the teen through the basic processes of telepathy.

"Telepathy isn't particularly difficult once you master the basics, and requires minimal energy exertion, but the initial learning can be a steep curve," Vlad lectured. "Since you already have experience with telekinesis, I suppose you are familiar with the basic principles of channelling your energy in a non-destructive manner. As such, I would like you to embed your thoughts that you wish to project with ectoenergy, much like how you would with an object, and will it to my own mind. _Like this._" Vlad said the last bit through telepathy, his words echoing oddly in Danny's brain, as though they were tangible in themselves, and yet not echoing at all at the same time.

It took a large amount of concentration, but after a few tries, Danny successfully communicated through telepathy, sending his words of "_am I doing it now?_" to Vlad's head.

Vlad beamed at him. "Yes, that's it!"

It took about an hour for Danny to be able to use telepathy consistently, but when they were done Vlad announced that they would be able to go into the Ghost Zone at the weekend after next.

Danny was less than ecstatic about the idea of going into the Ghost Zone than his mentor, whose pride and joy Danny could almost taste in the air. Actually, that might be a half-ghost thing. The Fenton parents had mentioned that ghosts could feed on emotions before.

Danny dismissed the thoughts as soon as they entered his head, hoping that Vlad didn't notice his sudden discomfort. As good of a teacher as the man was, he was very forward and direct with what he thought and wanted of the others.

The after school lessons came to an end, and Vlad declined to join the Fenton family in their dinner, apparently having work to attend to back at his own home.

Thoughts of travelling to the Ghost Zone invaded Danny's head during and after the meal, no matter how much he tried to banish the distressing thoughts of his nature as a halfa.

"I'm so gonna regret this," Danny muttered under his breath as he knocked on Jazz's bedroom door. He stood back and waited as he heard the sound of footsteps on carpet coming towards the door, which was opened by a curious-faced Jazz.

"Hey, uh, you know how you're always saying I can talk to you if I need to?" Danny questioned, only to be immediately ushered into the largely pink and fluffy bedroom.

Jazz gestured for Danny to sit on her bed, the covers neatly made without a single crease, while she took a seat on her padded metal chair by the desk coated in textbooks and papers.

"So, Jazz, what do you think I am as a halfa? A magical being or a ghost?" Danny questioned as he plopped onto the mattress beneath a shelf laden with heavy books.

Jazz raised an eyebrow. "Ghosts are magical beings, aren't they?"

"Yes, but, just answer the question please," Danny begged of her.

"Well, I guess you're both. I mean, a halfa is defined as being half-ghost." Jazz gently rolled a pen back and forth on her desk. "But I think the better question is what do you see yourself as?"

Danny cringed. Jazz always liked to turn personal questions back on whoever had come to her for advice in the name of helping them process their own thoughts and feelings.

"I see myself as a magical being," Danny forced out. "I think, the idea that I'm half-ghost scares me." He kept his baby blue eyes focused on the threads of the carpet.

"And why is that?" Jazz questioned.

Danny looked her in the eyes, tears beginning to leak from his own. "Because ghosts are dead, Jazz. And if I'm half ghost, then-" His voice cut itself off as a gargled sob tried to escape him.

Jazz had moved from her chair, and held his hands in her warm ones. "It's okay, Danny," she soothed.

"I'm too young to be dead!" Danny sobbed, the sound muffled as he placed his head on her shoulder in a pitiful hug. Jazz was taken aback by his words, but hugged her brother back regardless. She felt tears pricking at her own eyes at the distress Danny was in, but pushed them back in order to act as a rock, a support for Danny in his time of need.

Danny was eventually released Jazz from his embrace of grief, and wiped at his face with his hands. Jazz passed him a tissue, and he blew his runny nose. His face really wasn't a pretty sight at the moment - his eyes puffy and red, and the rest of his face following suit. He raised his head when Jazz coughed slightly and then spoke.

"Y'know, the Encyclopedia of Magical Beings said that halfas can be born, so being a halfa doesn't necessarily mean you're dead," she argued.

Danny pondered this for a moment, before shaking his head. "You weren't there when the portal accident happened." His lip wobbled as he spoke, but he pushed on through the influx of painful emotions. "It killed me. I died, Jazz." Danny sniffed, and Jazz passed him another tissue. "I think I'm half dead, and it terrifies me."

Jazz just ran her fingers through Danny's messy hair, letting him cry as much as he needed to. It was a good while before the flow of tears finally dried up, leaving Danny dryly sobbing while his sister comforted him.

"I don't know what you're dealing with exactly, but dealing with death is difficult for anyone," Jazz said now that Danny had calmed down enough to talk to. "Remember that we all love you regardless of what you are or are not, and what's important is that you're able to find a way to come to terms with this."

"Thanks Jazz." Danny gave her a half-smile, grief still present in his crystalline blue eyes. He gently lifted himself from the bed and walked over to the door. "I'll go clean up my face."

"Thanks, again," he added as he left the room.

Jazz smoothed out the wrinkles in her duvet, and shivered at the slight chill where Danny had been.

• • •

Danny threw his books and pencil case in his backpack the moment the bell rang to signify the end of the lesson. It was Friday, and he was definitely looking forward to the weekend - he was going to take his family to see the underground community, and as a result could feel a nervous excitement bubbling up inside him.

He sprinted over to the lockers, where Sam and Tucker were stood, talking in hushed tones.

"You can't, you know how much-" Tucker's quiet argument with Sam cut off mid-sentence as he saw Danny approach. "Hi Danny. Looking forward to the weekend?"

"Uh, yeah." Danny backpedalled. "What were you guys talking about just now?"

Tucker went to open his mouth, but Sam abruptly spoke over him. "There's something I need to tell you, about Vlad, at my place, in private. I found something you might find interesting."

"Have you been stalking him, or something?" Danny raised a quizzical eyebrow and folded his arms.

"What? No!" Sam exclaimed. "Just google searches and newspapers. Just hear me out, okay?"

"Fine," Danny conceded, letting his arms relax to his sides as he walked out of the school with his friends.

The chilly wind that whipped their clothes and hair about marked the turning point of autumn, from summer to the more-wintery climate. An electric tension hung around the trio, and their walking pace increased as they neared the large houses near Sam's home. Sam gave but a brief greeting to her parents before she shut herself in her room with the duo who'd trailed diligently behind her up the stairs. Papers littered her desk, and she opened the browser on her computer to reveal at least a dozen pinned tabs. Sam swiveled round in her chair to face Danny and Tucker. "Okay, so I know I said I'd give Vlad a chance, but I did some research on him, and it seems like my hunch might not have been wrong."

She held up a news article detailing how a billionaire had decided to gift Vlad Masters with a small fortune. The photo that accompanied it showed a bald, white man shaking Vlad's hand, while he stood opposite in a perfectly ironed suit, a neutral, almost smug expression upon his face.

"This isn't the only one - there are around a dozen more who just so happened to give Vlad a load of money around the same time, out of nowhere." Sam flipped through the stack of clippings. "He overshadowed them! It's totally obvious! Why else would they give a complete nobody a fortune like that?"

"He overshadowed them?" Danny questioned, his cold blue eyes narrowed.

"Yeah - it's basically like low-tier possession, and it just so happens to be a common power among ghosts, and as a result, halfas." Sam made exaggerated hand gestures as she spoke.

"But Vlad's right next to the dude in the picture," Tucker interjected, prompting a glare from Sam.

"I was a bit stumped by that at first too, but then I remembered that high-level ghosts are able to create duplicates. I know it seems like a stretch, but so is believing that billionaires and millionaires would just give their money and businesses to someone with nothing in return," Sam explained, then pointed at the computer screen. "And there's more: there were a series of invisible burglaries in Wisconsin about 15 years ago, which just so happens to be when Vlad was released from the hospital."

Danny lowered himself onto Sam's bed, sitting in a virtually catatonic state as he processed this information. "But, he wouldn't do that, right?"

"I'm sorry Danny, but Vlad probably isn't who you though he is. It's just all too suspicious." Sam rolled a bit towards him on the chair, and he flinched back.

"I just need to think," he said as he flickered in and out of visibility, before shifting into his ghost form and speeding invisibly through the ceiling, leaving Sam and Tucker solemnly gaping in the room.

Danny flew without looking where he was going, the information settling into his brain.

It just couldn't be right, could it? Surely Vlad hadn't stolen his fortune. He wasn't a bad person.

The young halfa crashed into his bedroom and jabbed at the power button on his laptop. The computer turned on painfully slowly, and Danny paced the room.

He went through article after article, page after page, before a knock on his door jolted him out of his focused state. He swiftly slammed on the minimise button of the tab. "What?"

Jazz poked her head around the door as it creaked open, and peered at Danny sitting at his desk. "Mom wanted me to tell you that dinner's ready. Are you okay, little brother?"

Danny only now noticed the salty trails of tears down his freckled cheeks. He wiped at them with his beads reflected a green glow back at him from the back of his hand, and he blinked his eyes until it was gone and his eyes returned to their usual baby blue. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Jazz gave him a questioning look, complete with a raised eyebrow. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Danny scowled. He opened and closed his mouth, unable to think up the words to explain what the problem was.

"What would you do if someone you trusted turned out to be a bad person?" he asked, eyes boring into her for an answer.

"I think that depends on who they are and what they've done," Jazz contemplated. "Do you think they can change?"

Danny paused. "I don't know…"

"Well, you can always think on it. Anyway, dinner. You might want to wash your face before you come downstairs." Jazz shuffled out of the room.

"Thanks, Jazz. Again, I guess," Danny said as he rose from his chair.

• • •

Danny hardly slept that night. His gut tied itself into knots and he felt sick from anticipation.

He stood uncharacteristically stiff as he waited for Vlad to come through the green swirls of the portal. With every second the lead weight in his stomach grew, and he wondered if he even wanted to talk to Vlad after yesterday, but forced himself to stay, if for no other reason than to seek either a confirmation or denial of the crimes from the older halfa.

Vlad arrived at almost exactly 10 am - the agreed upon time (Vlad was a morning person and wanted to start at 9 am, whereas Danny distinctly wasn't, so a compromise had been reached). Danny's breath hitched and he didn't know how to broach the topic.

"Are you quite alright, Danny?" Vlad asked as he landed on the basement floor. His cape drifted down, but never truly touched the floor in defiance of gravity. "You look rather pale. Like a ghost if I do say so." He chuckled slightly at his own joke.

Danny forced a smile onto his face. "Yeah, I'm fine." He took a deep breath and exhaled, letting the smile fall from his face. "Actually, I wanted to ask you something."

Vlad raised an eyebrow. "What did you want to ask?"

Danny paused for a long moment, pondering how to word his questions.

"How did you become a billionaire?"

Vlad gained a thoughtful look on his face, but Danny was more focused on the slight hint of fear that emanated from him. "I made a series of good investments and business deals. That's all there is to it really."

That was vague. Danny really didn't want to hear a vague response, and cut straight to the point. "And you didn't overshadow anyone or do any invisible burglaries?"

Vlad flinched. "What would make you suggest such a thing?" he sounded almost offended, however his face screamed fear and recognition.

Danny folded his arms and did his best to try and suppress his ectoenergy from rising into his eyes. "How stupid do you think I am? There was a series of invisible burglaries in Wisconsin that just so happened to be just after you were released from the hospital. Are you saying that was a random ghost that just so happened to have a use for millions of dollars of jewellery?"

"Yes?" Vlad shuffled a step back, recognising when he'd been caught out.

The green glow broke through and made Danny's eyes glow a vibrant light that clashed with Vlad's own pink glow and shone off the tears trickling down Danny's face like streams. "So I'm guessing you're going to tell me that a bunch of billionaires just so happened to want to give you specifically most of their money and businesses?"

Vlad gave a defeated sigh. "What kind of answer do you want, my boy? Yes, I stole and overshadowed, but that's in the past. I was new to my powers, and in the wrong frame of mind to use them rightly."

"I don't know! I hoped you were a good person! I hoped you hadn't used your powers like that!" Danny didn't even bother to wipe at the tears that were now pouring down his face. "And now what? You want to do good by training me? Just tell me it isn't true!"

"Well that would be a lie, now wouldn't it?" Vlad stepped forward to try and comfort Danny, but the younger moved back against the wall. "I truly am sorry, and training you is not merely an attempt to clear my own conscience. I-...They say a man's true nature is what he is like upon being given power, and I am an unfortunate example of that, but I have changed in the years since. I've been working to create clean energy, and develop technologies that could improve the lives of billions. And besides, it's not like the billionaires needed all that money."

"So, what? Does this mean you'd be willing to give your fortune to charity? Help the poor?" questioned Danny.

"Well, I-" Vlad looked at Danny with pleading eyes. "All of it?"

Danny locked his eyes with Vlad's. Ice seeped up the wall behind him. "It's not like you need all that money."

"You know what? I don't have to stay here and deal with this behaviour from you, Daniel." Vlad spun on his heel and stormed towards the portal. "Feel free to get in contact when you've calmed down."

Danny huffed. "You're one crazed up fruit loop! You know that, right?" he yelled as Vlad walked through the toxic green swirls of the ghost portal.

Jazz came thundering down the stairs. "What's going on? Is everything okay?" she exclaimed. Her eyes fell on Danny's tear-stained face. Her face softened. "Danny?"

Danny wiped at his cheeks, fruitlessly trying to get rid of the rivulets that kept trickling down despite him not wanting to cry in front of his sister.

"Yeah, no. Vlad's not teaching me anymore," he said with a grim conviction.

"What!? Why?" Maddie Fenton came down into the basement, and Danny cringed at the concern and upset in her voice.

Danny shuffled his feet. "He's not who I thought he was. He's not who any of us thought he was."

Maddie gave Danny a tight hug, and he wept into her shoulder.

"Do you want to take this to the living room to explain?" Maddie enquired, crouching down to speak to Danny more at his eye level.

"Um, yeah," he replied. The stream of tears had stopped by the time the family had sat down together on the armchair and sofa. An air of apprehension hung in the room, and Danny wasn't sure how to break the uncomfortable silence that had formed.

Fortunately for him, he didn't have to, as his father broke it with a question. "What happened Danny-boy? Where's Vlad?"

"Vlad left." Danny cringed. "We had an argument."

Danny took a breath to try and ground himself before he let out the bombshell of what he'd confronted Vlad about.

"Sam showed me a load of news articles the other day, and Vlad stole his entire fortune from others using ghost powers."

Jack's breath audibly hitched with a short gasp, and he let out a small, "oh, Vladdy."

"I'm sorry Dad," Danny continued. "I can show you the evidence, if you want. He used invisibility to rob jewellery stores at first, and then he overshadowed billionaires to get them to give him their money and businesses.

It's just typical. Just when I thought I've found someone I can relate to, he turns out to be a fruitloop." Danny scowled and muttered the last part and he fidgeted with the bottom of his T-shirt.

"I'm so sorry, Danny." Jack put a hand on Danny's shoulder. Danny didn't look up, staring at his jeans, but he could feel the waves of upset coming from his father.  
"It's not your fault," Danny said, pushing a sincere, sympathetic warmth into his tone, past his loathing of Vlad. He had a feeling that that apology wasn't just directed at him, but also Vlad, for the accident that started this all.

The rest of the family conversation was spent thinking about how to continue with Danny's training, sans Vlad, since Danny really didn't want to see the older halfa any time soon, and they concluded that after school and at weekends would be the best time to train in the lab, much like before. It would be more difficult without someone who already had experience with using ghost powers, but they could always work it out as they went along, much like Danny had before meeting Vlad.

Wanting to end the conversation on a light tone, Danny spoke up as they were about to get up to make lunch. "You guys still want to go see the underground community tomorrow, right?"

"Of course!" Jack brightened up at the prospect of finding out more about the supernatural. He'd already insisted on reading the Encyclopedia of Magical Beings after Jazz, which had only peaked his interest in actually meeting some more of them.

Danny had spent the rest of the Saturday on his homework and playing Doomed with Tucker, who expressed slight concern about the idea of the Fenton parents going into the underground community, largely the fact that they had a habit of being a tad destructive. Danny, however, was more worried that his parents would embarrass him with their excitement and inappropriate questions.

Regardless of their concerns, they were able to wholeheartedly agree that it would be good for Danny's parents to know more about the supernatural aspects of his life, and the community as a whole. Danny also felt a sort of acceptance in his parents enthusiasm that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

The Sunday came along, with sunlight filtering onto Danny's groggy face while he deeply regretted his late night Doomed session, especially after his lack of sleep from the friday night.

Sam and Tucker met the Fentons at their door, and the group made their way towards their usual alley entrance. Jazz and the Fenton parents exchanged sceptical and confused glances when the trio of friends suddenly stopped near the end of the tight street.

"Wanna do the honors, Danny?" asked Sam, gesturing to the large magical insignia on the wall.

"So I just touch the center of it?" he questioned, as he did just that. Green sparks flew out from his fingertips, and an explosion of the same purple energy that appeared when Sam opened it lit up the symbols. The section of wall moved downward to create the doorway, and revealed the slope lit by flickering, ice blue flames.

"Incredible!" muttered Maddie. "An autonomous motion caused by the energy from the touch. How does it work? How do you know where to touch the wall?"

"Huh? In order: I don't know. Magic, I guess," Danny replied. "And there's a circle, with loads of symbols and stuff around it. Can't you…? Oh, you can't see it."

"How about we head into the tunnel and I'll explain how it works on the way?" Sam suggested, making her way towards the entrance.

The others nodded along, and Sam continued to explain once they entered the pathway. "The magical circle's made with the instructions of how it should move and is activated by touch in the center of the circle. Then it was enchanted to only be visible to magical beings."

"Are magic circles a common occurrence amongst magical beings?" asked Maddie.

Sam gave a so-so motion with her hand. "Eh, ish. Only a really powerful magic user would be able to make something like the one at the doorway, but most witches, wizards, druids, sorcerers, etcetera can make more basic ones. I think the one at the doorway was made by a warlock, but I might be wrong."

"How interesting. Are you able to make magic circles?" Maddie continued her interrogation.

"Yeah, just like plant and protection-based ones right now though," Sam responded, torn between being uncomfortable with the constant questions and liking being able to talk about one of her areas of interest. "My magic's mostly life-based, so I can make plants grow, repair stuff, stuff like that. My grandma's trying to teach me some healing charms to use on people and animals, but I can't seem to get the hang of it."

"That sounds like a really useful skill to learn," Maddie commented, as they drew close to the archway that led into the fountain square.

"Welcome to the underground community!" announced Danny as his parents and sister took in the bejeweled surroundings with awe.

"Woah," said Jazz, her mouth hanging open.

The assorted crowd milled around, most casting a curious glances towards the Fenton family, with their brightly coloured jumpsuits.

"Is it just me, or are people staring at us?" Jazz said quietly to Danny.

He looked to his parents, then back to her. "Yeah, I think I can see why." Danny then spoke louder, as to be heard by his parents, who were excitedly talking to each other and pointing at everything around them like children in a candy shop. "Where do you guys wanna go? We can get more books at the Skulk and Lurk, or go to the market, or the Crystal?" He ticked the places they could visit on his fingers.

The Fenton parents were quite slow to answer, unable to decide, so Jazz cut in. "I don't know about everyone else, but I want to get more books."

There was no resistance against this idea, so the group found themselves being guided by Sam towards the dingy bookstore. As per usual, a dim light shone throughout the small room, highlighting the foil print on the spines of some of the hardback books.

Jazz immediately began scanning the bookshelves, picking up the occasional book to read the blurb.

Jack Fenton, on the other hand, had struggled to fit through the doorway to the shop, and decided, with the help of a tug at his arm and guidance from his wife, to not run between the old shelves. The large man was surprisingly gentle when he picked up a book with a tea bag brown cover for someone whose mere presence usually led to destruction of some sort.

Danny noticed the deliberate cautiousness in his father's actions, and appreciated the effort. He might have been gawking and pointing outside, but he did try to show respect and care in his own way, even if his excitement often did get the better of him.

The trio of supernatural friends kept an eye on the human members of the Fenton family as they browsed the seemingly random books (although Sam, and to a lesser extent Tucker, somehow seemed to know the layout and sections within the place).

"Hey, Danny, look at this."

Danny looked over to Tucker, who was holding a faintly glowing, hard-bound book.

"What is it Tuck?" he asked as he peered over Tucker's shoulder. The book had a faded purple cover made of some odd material, not quite leather and not quite scales, but something in between and alien. The cover had odd sigils on it, that seemed to glow, but also not at the same time, as though the light did not exist in this realm. They swirled around in Danny's eyes, making them glow an acid green, and rearranged themselves into familiar letters and words.

Much to Danny's surprise, he could perfectly read the script on the book. He gasped and read it out loud, sounding out each syllable as if it were difficult to pronounce. "Pariah's reign and afterlife."

"It's in ghost."

Danny startled at Sam's voice, and looked up from the book abruptly to see her peering over his shoulder. "Huh?" he said, struggling to be coherent. "I- what?" Looking back at the text he saw the symbols for what they originally were before they were decoded by his mind, but could still make out the meaning in the squiggles.

"It's in ghost," Sam repeated,then elaborated. "It's the universal language among ghosts. I've used it sometimes in charms."

"But I never learned it," Danny interjected.

Sam merely shrugged. "It's a universal language, Danny. You must have learned it when you became a halfa."

"But how do you know I know it?" Danny was even more perplexed now, with only a slight understanding of what everyone was saying in the back of his mind.

"Dude, you literally spoke it earlier," Tucker deadpanned.

Danny's eyes blew wide. "I what?!"

"What's going on?" queried Maddie. The rest of the Fenton family were standing nearby, curious as to the topic of discussion between the trio of friends.

"Can you read this?" Danny thrust the book towards his parents, who looked at it with thinly veiled confusion.

"No, I've never seen anything like this before. Why?" replied Maddie.

"Because apparently it's ghost." Danny rubbed the back of his neck. "And I can kinda read it…" He trailed off, getting very quiet towards the end.

"What does it say, Danny-boy?" Jack happily boomed, clearly excited about this new information.

"Pariah's reign and afterlife."

"So that's what you were saying earlier," exclaimed Tucker.

"Yeah?" Danny confirmed with an unsure tone.

"Man, you spoke ghost. It sounded all weird," Tucker shuddered recalling the unearthly sounds that his friend had somehow been able to produce. "Like, it was really spooky sounding."

"Maybe you can learn to switch speak ghost at will," suggested Sam. "It could come in really handy for visiting the Ghost Zone."

"We're still going to the Ghost Zone?" asked Danny and Tucker in unison.

"Well, duh. You can't miss out on something like that. Besides, if Vlad could do it on his own, then I'm sure it's fine for us," Sam said dismissively.

"But isn't it dangerous?" Jazz spoke up.

"Not with our Spectre Speeder it isn't!" Jack shouted exuberantly. "It's fitted with a built in ghost shield and weapons, and it's powered by ectoplasm, so it'll never run out of juice."

Maddie joined in on his excitement. "And Vlad gave us some of his research on the Ghost Zone, so we have some information on the atmosphere and geography. It's really interesting actually: the Zone seems to have a breathable ectoplasmic air, so we could even leave the Speeder if we needed to. Although we aren't yet sure of the effects of ectoplasmic contamination, small amounts don't seem to be harmful to human physiology."

"So it's decided, we're going to check out the Ghost Zone next weekend," Sam confirmed, her slight glare towards Tucker signaling that there was no room for debate.

The Fenton family paid for their stack of books, including the book in ghost, and Danny found himself laden with heavy bags as they left the store.

"How about we check out the market next," suggested Danny, then he instantly regretted it when he realised how much they'd already bought.

The market was as busy as it was on their first visit to the place. The stalls were packed to the brim with products for sale, and Danny looked over to find his parents were already over at a stall with spectral detection devices and seals, interrogating the poor, slightly intimidated seller. Quite a few of the beings around were staring at the excited couple in a mixture of confusion and caution.

"I thought they were humans," commented a troll with a great hulking form at the edge of the crowd, with mossy stone for skin.

This sparked a discussion amongst the beings, sprinkled with notes of worry and panic at the knowledge that Amity Park's infamous ghost hunters were in the supernatural hub of the town.

Danny and Jazz cringed at the attention, and Danny felt like turning invisible.

"Are you okay?" asked a fairy, hovering over to the two Fenton children. "You seem worried. The ghost hunters aren't threatening you, are they?"

Danny felt like he wanted to shrink in on himself. "What? No! They're my parents."

It seemed that Danny might have been a little too loud in his response, as the discussions seemed to shift to be about him.

Maddie and Jack Fenton rejoined the group of teenagers, with a bag of papers and slips with words in ghost and symbols written on them.

"Is it just me, or is everyone talking about us?" Maddie queired.

"They're talking about us," Danny huffed. "We should probably go."

"But we've barely done anything here," whined Jack, only to be cut off by Jazz.

"Danny's not comfortable with the attention. You can always come back another day." The teen crossed her arms.

Jack opened his mouth to complain, but stopped when Maddie put a hand on his arm. "If the kids don't want to stay here, then don't you think we should do the responsible thing and not make them any more uncomfortable."

With that, the group of mostly humans made their way back through the crowds of magical beings to the passageway, only approached a couple of times by concerned passersby, who wanted to know what they were doing there.

Once back at Fenton Works, everyone set about unpacking what they'd got from the trip.

Slotting the ghostly book on its side on top of other books on his bookshelf, and making a mental note to clear out his bookshelves, Danny glanced at the time on the alarm clock on his bedside table. The clock read 2 PM, and Danny was half-surprised it had only been a few hours in the community hub, while half of him felt that it should have been longer.

He changed his mind and picked the ghostly book back up. Danny flopped down on his bed and opened the cover to read the first page.

The language felt more like it communicated through meaning and emotion than words, channeling the soul of the writer, and Danny soon found himself lost in what should have been a dry retelling of Pariah Dark's afterlife.

Pariah Dark had formed deep in the ectoplasmic folds of the Infinite Realms with the imprinted goal to be king of the Ghost Zone. He had spent several centuries gaining reputation and power, working to create infrastructure within the Ghost Zone. Dark's rule was cemented by the creation of the Ring of Rage and Crown of Fire to channel the power of the Ghost Zone itself, amplifying Dark's own, along with the construction of Pariah's Keep.

Time passed, and Dark integrated the Ghost Zone with the politics and community of the material world's supernatural community.

It was during his time of communication with the material world, that led to Pariah Dark gaining a romantic relationship with a mortal woman named Eira - a witch with a speciality for life-based magic. In this relationship, Eira birthed Dark's son - Richard Pariahson, who was raised in a mixture of the ghost and mortal worlds. Pariahson proceeded to join the supernatural council of Sweden and Norway, further improving relations between the living and ghost communities.

This was all for naught however, as during the seventh age of Pariah's reign Richard Pariahson was assassinated at the age of 158 by the Order of the Rain. Pariahson's death resulted in Dark pledging to find and kill all those involved in Pariahson's murder, which led to the murder of countless innocents who Dark suspected of involvement in the plot.

The supernatural council refused to continue communications with the Ghost Zone following the murders, infuriating Dark, who felt that his actions were entirely justified.

In an act of defiance, Dark set about preparing armies to conquer the living world.

A group of powerful ghosts known as the Ancients banded together to prevent Dark's plans by taking the Crown of Fire from him and sealing him in the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep.

As such, the Ancients were able to gain rulership of the Infinite Realms, and formed a government of sorts consisting of the council of observants. The Ancients then made reparations with the mortal world in exchange for continued communication between the two realms.

Unfortunately the council's authority was not respected by the general populous of the Ghost Zone, and smaller factions formed with their own governing bodies, while the vast majority of the Ghost Zone fell into anarchy.

Danny was torn out of the book towards the end by his door being opened. He glanced up to see a slightly miffed Jazz standing in his doorway.

"Mom says dinner's ready," she said simply. "You should really pay attention to the world around you a bit more Danny. I was knocking on your door for ages."

Danny picked up a scrap of paper from his desk and shoved it between the pages of the book, which he set down on his bed. "Sorry about that. I was reading."

"Is that the ghost book?" Jazz asked as Danny stretched and stood up from his bed.

"Yeah," Danny confirmed. "It's a really good book."

"What's it about?" Jazz queried as she and Danny made their downstairs.

Danny paused for a moment, trying to think of a good answer to summarise the book, then replied. "It's about the history of Pariah Dark, the king of the Ghost Zone."

"Oh, yeah. Wasn't he mentioned in the Encyclopedia of Magical Beings?"

"Yeah, he had a halfa son, then when his son was killed he did a bunch of stuff that led to him getting locked away in the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep."

Danny and Jazz entered the dining room, and seated themselves at the table, where a pie and pots of vegetables sat in the middle.

"What took so long?" asked Maddie as she finished serving herself a slice of pie and passed the knife to Jazz.

"Danny was reading and didn't hear me when I knocked on his door," said Jazz.

Danny blushed and rubbed the back of his neck. "It's a good book," he defended in a mumble.

"What were you reading?" Jack enquired, giving himself a large helping of pie that splatted with a puddle of gravy on his plate.

"Pariah's Reign and Afterlife," Danny said through a forkful of pie.

"Ooohh, isn't that the book that's in ghost?" Jack's eyes sparkled with excitement. "Can you read it easily?"

Danny shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. It took a moment to get used to it, but it's pretty much the same as reading english, but with emotion."

"With emotion?" asked Maddie, a sceptical look on her face.

"It's hard to explain." Danny poked his carrots around the plate. "It's sorta like the words don't just have meaning, but also feeling. Like you can feel the emotions of it. Kind of like tone."

"That makes sense. Ghosts are largely emotional in nature to the point that some can feed off human emotion," Maddie explained. "You should probably practice speaking ghost for next weekend since you can understand it so easily."

"Yeah, but I don't know how to switch between speaking ghost," complained Danny.

"Maybe you have to channel your emotions, or something?" suggested Jazz.

Danny shot her a quizzical look and tried to recreate the feeling of reading ghost in his head. "Am I speaking it now?" His voice had an odd echo to it, not dissimilar to how it sounded when he was in his ghost form, but more so. He could hear the odd sounds of ghost at the same time as his intended message, like a mix between the wind blowing amongst the trees and human speech played in reverse.

The confused and amazed looks on his family's faces were all the answer he needed.

Jack was the first to shake himself out of his momentary shock. "Woah, that was brilliant Danny-boy. Great idea, Jazz!"

"Wait, what does it sound like to you guys?" Danny timidly asked.

The others were silent for a moment, then Jazz piped up. "It's like when you play audio backwards, but also really distorted, like a wailing and static."

Jack nodded along. "It actually sounded like some of our recordings from the Ghost Zone we got when we sent out probes after the portal started working. I wonder if we might have picked up some ghosts' conversations. We tried making a ghost gabber to translate them, but so far all it can do is identify when a ghost is talking."

"Do you think that you could try teaching us some ghost?" Maddie enquired to Danny, who shrugged in reply.

"I mean, I can try."

The rest of the conversation was spent discussing whether it would be possible for a human to learn the ghost language. Jack made the point that Sam had known the symbols of the language, so it should be theoretically possible for a human to learn to speak it as well.

Danny nearly forgot about his homework in his parents' excitement, but begrudgingly pardoned himself to his room to do it despite how much he wished he could spend more time with his family. This whole thing with the ghost language was just as new and exciting for him as it was his parents, and he was beginning to consider that ectology might not be so bad of a career path.

He settled down at his desk and began to ponder what on earth Shakespeare's intentions were, or rather what would get him a good grade. The waning orange light outside reminded Danny that he was very much tired, and he made haste to finish his essay before going to bed and falling asleep like a rock under the covers.

After school Danny found himself listening to the audio recordings of ghosts that his parents had mentioned the previous night, doing his best to translate the conversations of the ghosts who had passed by the Fenton microphones.

"They're saying that the portal doors are an eyesore," he said, trying his best to suppress a chuckle at the colourful language the ghosts in the recording had used to describe the yellow and black striped blast doors.

Jack frowned, his bushy eyebrows drawing together. "Well they're wrong," he muttered petulantly, arms crossed.

Maddie patted him on the back in an attempt to comfort him. "Perhaps not everyone shares your tastes, Jack."

They played some more audio clips, which were mostly just excerpts from mundane conversations about this and that: wanting to go on vacation, relationship advice, and an angry rant about some guy named Walker.

The conclusion that was reached was one that didn't surprise Danny, but debunked his parents previous theories about ghosts being sub-human and malevolent in nature. Ghosts were very much like humans, with mundane worries and goals, like their living counterparts.

However, as Maddie brought up in the conversation, much to Danny's discomfort, the idea of ghosts having obsessions could not be ruled out. Danny decided not to mention just how passionate many of the conversations he'd heard had been, as it would do nothing but support this theory.

The rest of the week passed far too fast for Danny's liking, and was far too tiring. He continued training his powers with his parents along with trying to teach them some ghost, something that proved to be difficult. The Fenton parents couple were unable to speak the language, but were able to understand a few odd words and phrases. It was quite obvious that the language would not be easy for a human to learn, with the sounds being alien to the human consciousness.

During these sessions Danny perfected being able to switch seamlessly into speaking ghost at will, and even wrote in it.

It was now friday evening, and Danny's nerves about the upcoming trip to the Ghost Zone peaked.

"Will you relax, Danny?" snapped Sam, as Danny passed her once again with his pacing. "Your parents have the Spectre Speeder and more ghost weapons than they really should have. And you have ghost powers."

"But we don't know what it's like in there!" exclaimed Danny. "And, it's not just that…" He dropped down onto his bed, a sombre expression on his face. "I, the portal accident still scares me, okay? I know it's irrational, but I want to stay well away from that thing."

"Oh." Sam stared at the floor and tears tickled at her eyes.

"Dude, we'll be there to help you through it." Tucker sat next to Danny and rubbed circles into his back.

"Thanks Tuck," said Danny, wiping the tears from his cheeks. "That means a lot."

Tucker's phone took that moment to ding. "Sorry man, Mom says I've got to head home now," he apologised. "See you tomorrow."

"I should probably go home too. I'm sorry Danny." Sam stood up to follow Tucker out the bedroom. Guilt was written across her face, and even Danny could tell that she wasn't just apologising for leaving.

"It's not your fault, Sam," he tried to say, only to be stopped by Sam.

"I know, I know. But I still feel like it is."

Danny gave her a slight smile. "Even so, I'm glad the portal accident happened. I don't think I'd ever want to go back to being normal."

"'Night Danny." Sam smiled back, equally shaky yet genuine.

Danny flopped backwards onto his bedspread, now alone in his room with his swirling thoughts, but whenever the thought of the portal came into his mind, he reminded himself of all those he could turn to for help, and it made his shaky smile turn into a more heartfelt one despite the nerves that still jittered under the surface.

• • •

The Spectre Speeder sat in the middle of the lab, Maddie and Jack doing last minute checks while the kids stood to the side of the room.

"Ready everyone?" asked Jack, grin splitting his face. "Are all your jumpsuits good?"

The group of teens looked down at the spare orange and black jumpsuits with an X shape across the chest securing the bag of ecto weapons and supplies on their backs. All of the teens bar Danny, that is, as his status as a halfa meant that concerns of ectocontamination were a moot point.

"Right, let's get going!"

The group packed into the hovering, small spacecraft-like vehicle, the trio in the back bench seats and Jazz on a sideways facing seat like the ones against the wall of a bus, strapped in for safety, despite Jack Fenton's usual disregard for safety features on his inventions.

Devices and dials covered the front panel of the craft, while the back had less, but still a significant amount of them on the upper walls. Large windows stretched around the Speeder, giving everyone inside a good view of whatever they would find outside.

Engines powered up and Sam and Tucker squeezed Danny's hands from their respective sides of him on the bench. The green swirls engulfed them as they drifted forward. A chill ran down Danny's spine, while at the same time he felt charged with energy.

The pure green gave way to an endless landscape of floating islands and doors with ghosts floating sporadically throughout. A few heads turned when they saw the Speeder, but they seemed more curious than anything else.

"Woah!" Danny gasped as he saw the view outside the windows. "It's amazing!"

"And creepy," added Jazz.

"Fascinating," commented Maddie. "Gravity seems to work differently here than in our dimension. I wonder if all physics function differently in the Ghost Zone."

Conversations broke out among the occupants of the Spectre Speeder as they drifted deeper into the Zone, but stopped abruptly as a large shadow loomed over them.

Staring out the front window they could see a tall, intimidating ghost dressed in a white suit, with a fedora and gaunt, almost skeletal face. His pure green eyes narrowed as the Speeder slowed to a halt in front of him.

He brought out a heavy book and flicked through the pages.

"Trespassing. That's against the rules."


End file.
